


The Ghost Who Came In From the Cold

by Joyce (Alysswolf)



Series: Ghost Series [4]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Case Fic, Character Turned Into a Ghost, Gen, Unconventional Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-03
Updated: 2013-06-03
Packaged: 2017-12-13 19:24:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 83,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/827938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alysswolf/pseuds/Joyce
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mulder meets an old acquaintance and learns there is more to the afterlife than he suspected.  Scully and Ambercrombie attempt to solve a series of murders with Mulder's expert help.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Ghost Who Came In From the Cold

**Author's Note:**

> Beta-ed by Rhi and Merwyn who helped me prod my muses into getting this long-standing WIP finished. Yay!

Friday afternoon, December 11, 1998  
X-Files Office

 

Scully barely had time to hang up her coat before her partner slammed into their basement office. Anxious to avoid a collision, she walked hastily over to her desk. She had known this confrontation was coming for the last four hours. Simon had maintained an icy silence in the car on the way back from the crime scene. He had stopped by the men's room, giving her a brief respite from his simmering anger. Scully couldn't remember ever seeing Simon angry before. Even Mulder was stunned into uncharacteristic silence, except for the chill touch of his hand against her back to remind her that he was there.

"Scully, what happened out there?" Simon asked gruffly as he flung his coat on top of the coat rack which swayed dangerously.

"Simon," Scully faltered as she tried to find the words to tell him that no, she did not intend to explain that she had been getting messages from a dead man.

"Don't try to tell me that nothing happened. I'm not blind. Either you trust me or you will continue to shut me out of something that directly affects our partnership," Simon interrupted sharply. 

Part of her wanted to tell him he had no right to question her, but her common sense told her that he did deserve some sort of explanation. That was the problem, though. How much to tell him without betraying the fact that Mulder was still an integral part of the X-Files, despite the slight handicap of being dead?

"He's right, Scully," Mulder said, his voice coming from his favorite perching spot atop the printer table. "I'm not going to apologize for interfering to save your life, but I will concede that I probably could have found a more subtle way to do it," he admitted wearily.

Scully's eyes narrowed as she tried to find a way to negotiate through the treacherous waters of male ego, dead and alive.

"What was I supposed to do, let you stumble through a booby-trapped house without trying to help?"

Mulder sounded frustrated. "It wasn't only your life, you know. Some of those traps would have taken out Simon and the hostages as well," he snapped, more with resignation than anger, she noted. It was odd, but Mulder was sounding more tired recently. She didn't think ghosts got tired. She made a mental note to ask him what was wrong when they got home tonight. Providing, of course, that she got Simon safely derailed from his hot pursuit of her sudden ability to detect traps.

"What's going on, Scully? Why do I have this feeling that I'm being shut out?" Simon asked, exasperated by the intent look on Scully's face that made her look as if she were listening to somebody he couldn't hear.

"Simon, it's not a matter of trust. I do trust you, but... " Scully paused as she tried to find the words to explain the situation without giving away too much.

"Yes, there's always that 'but', isn't there? I've been patient for nearly six months. I've comforted myself by believing that as long as it didn't directly affect our work, whatever secret you're hiding didn't matter. Today, you were acting on information you had no rational way of knowing. You expected me to trust your judgment without question." Simon paused as he tried to forget the harrowing passage through the house, guided only by Scully's voice, while his seventh sense clamored that they were both in mortal danger.

"I gave you that trust. Don't you think it's about time that you trusted me?"

Scully began to get irritated. She hated being backed into a corner. Simon seemed possessed with the need to get answers to questions she couldn't answer. He was forcing this confrontation. She wanted to tell him to get out, but her conscience reminded her that this must have been how Mulder felt when she refused to accept what he believed without proof. She hoped Mulder would refrain from reminding her of her past unwillingness to believe him on simple trust alone.

"Simon, I'm tired and dirty and I have a shooting report to file," she explained, allowing some of her weariness to seep into her tone. "I promise, we'll talk, but right now, we are both too on edge," she offered, hoping that he would accept the delay.

Simon looked mulish, but he agreed to the delay with a curt nod of his head. Grabbing his coat and briefcase, he started to leave without saying a word. Scully tried not to wince at the notable lack of his usual good-natured goodnight. As he reached the door, he turned. 

"I know I don't have any right to demand anything from you, but I want to be a partner you can trust, not just one you feel obliged to tolerate," he said wistfully. Before Scully could respond he had gone, leaving her standing beside her desk, wondering how everything had gone wrong so fast.

"It's been building for some time, Scully. My interference this afternoon probably only accelerated his frustration. He's been half-sensing me for months and getting pretty damn confused by your sudden leaps of deduction whenever I feed you an idea," Mulder said quietly as he carefully materialized. 

"It's not going to work," she said wearily as she collapsed into her chair. She hadn't been lying when she told Simon that she was tired. The shooting report was going to require her full attention and she had no idea how she was going to explain why she knew the kidnapper had laid booby-traps throughout the house, nor how she managed to know the one safe path through the traps. Then she had to explain how she knew where the man was hiding. The report was going to be a nightmare.

"It will," Mulder assured her as he came over to sit on the edge of her desk. She did not feel reassured and gave him a skeptical look indicating that he better be prepared to prove it. Trust Mulder to be optimistic when common sense should be enough to tell him that things were falling apart.

"Scully, the only real problem is Simon. The report isn't going to be that hard. If we can manage to explain sewer monsters, we can explain the reason you deduced the pattern of the traps. After all, the first one was rather obvious," he pointed out with a scowl.

"Intentionally so?" Scully asked as she pondered the implications of Mulder's deduction.

"Very much so. Bryson fed off the terror his traps produced. I could feel him gloating like a fat spider in the center of his web watching the flies struggle to get free," he responded angrily. 

Before she could say a word, Mulder controlled the electrical energy beginning to arc around him. Scully gave him an appreciative smile. He was doing better at remembering the consequences of his anger. She marveled at the control he had shown in Bryson's house of horrors. The effect of an electrical storm on some of those traps didn't bear thinking about. From the look in Mulder's eyes, she knew he had been very aware of the consequences of any lapse on his part.

"How isn't important. You saved the lives of your team and the three hostages. Bryson would have killed his hostages if you hadn't burst in and taken him down first. No one is going to look too closely at your report. They're too relieved to have the ordeal over, with only the suspect as a casualty," Mulder argued with increasing confidence. Despite her doubts, Scully felt herself being swayed by Mulder's certainty.

"Just consider this an X-File and demonstrate your usual skill at putting a rational explanation onto events that never come close to being rational."

Scully sighed and nodded. It could be done. With Mulder's help, she could probably come up with a plausible explanation. God knows, Mulder was an expert at making the paranormal seem perfectly natural. That just left Simon, and she didn't think he was going to be brushed off with a cleverly worded report.

"I don't think Simon is going to be impressed by my semantic abilities in report writing," Scully noted. 

"Probably not," Mulder admitted. "I'm afraid you may have to tell him the truth, at least part of it," he conceded.

"You're suggesting that I tell him I'm hearing voices?" she asked incredulously. That would go over well, she thought sarcastically. She frowned at Mulder, who had started to chuckle. 

"Well, you seem to have four options," Mulder said as he held up four fingers and started ticking off the options one by one. Scully gave him her best skeptical stare and waited uneasily for his recitation.

"Number one - tell him nothing. I don't recommend this one. It would only make him more suspicious. He'd make it his business to find out what you were hiding."

Scully nodded a reluctant agreement. She preferred this option, but it was unworkable.

"Number two - feed him the same bull you're going to feed Skinner. You analyzed Bryson's past and knew that he fancied himself some sort of warrior wizard out of one of those role-playing games and deduced that he would plant his traps along the lines of a Celtic circle maze." Mulder gave her a triumphant smile.

OK, this one had possibilities, she thought. Mulder was looking extremely smug, even though she suspected that he had only come up with the pattern in the past hour. The fear she had felt coming off him in the house had been too real for him to have known the pattern then.

"Interesting. I'm not sure Skinner will buy it, but I don't think he'll question it very thoroughly, either," she admitted. Part of her mind was now busy piecing together her report. Writing it would take some careful wording, but it wouldn't alarm anyone.

"The problem with this option is that it's the latest in a series of minor incidents that he is beginning to add up in his mind. We'd probably be able to get away with this explanation if this was the first time he sensed me interfering," Mulder admitted with an apologetic shrug.

"I know. You've tried to be careful," Scully reassured him. Mulder had done his best, but Simon seemed to have a talent for being in the wrong place at the right time to catch the edge of one of Mulder's infrequent contributions to the partnership.

"Number three - tell him just enough to get by. You sensed the traps, as if someone was telling you where they were. This is close to your 'hearing voices' explanation, but puts it a bit higher on the paranormal scale. Simon can make up his own mind about whose voice you're hearing, but he might suspect that it's me."

This one had strong possibilities, Scully admitted. It would have the benefit of being the truth, just not the whole truth. It would also explain most of the past incidents without revealing that Mulder was actually present as a ghost.

"I like this one," she acknowledged as she continued to consider the possible ramifications of confessing to hearing Mulder's voice offering advice. Not something she would want to go beyond the X-Files office, but she thought she could trust Simon not to gossip.

"What's number four?" she asked, then realized what the only remaining option was and started to shake her head, no.

"You got to admit, telling Simon the whole truth might make things easier in the long run," Mulder argued. 

"He's eventually going to figure it out. Why not just tell him now and save all of us a lot of worry? He's making me nervous, picking up my presence even when I'm practically not here," he added, sounding a bit aggrieved. 

"Too dangerous," she shot back instantly. There was no way she was going to tell Simon that the ghost of the man he accidentally killed was haunting her. Mulder grumbled, but gave in without argument. 

Now she was beginning to worry. This wasn't like the Mulder she knew. She sighed in sheer mental exhaustion as the day's events settled on her like a lead balloon.

"Let's go home. You look beat. We've got the whole weekend to come up with something to tell Simon," Mulder said optimistically as he drifted over to get her coat. 

She was tempted to argue, but he was right; she was tired and she had a headache. The argument with Simon had only intensified a dull ache into a single throbbing bass drum beating time in her head. She nodded her agreement and looked up to see Mulder disappear, still holding the coat. 

Scully shook her head and started shoving papers in her briefcase. So much for a nice relaxing weekend, she grumbled to herself. A moment later Mulder reappeared, holding out her coat.

"It's starting to snow. Just a light flurry, but you know that a single snowflake is enough to send this town into hysteria," he advised as she wiggled into the heavy winter coat. 

Just what she needed: a commute home with panic-stricken D.C. drivers. This day kept getting worse. Mulder loved driving in snow and had always taken a perverse delight in maneuvering through traffic snarled by timid drivers confronting snow flurries. She could tell he missed being able to offer her a ride home. It added to the already tired expression in his eyes.

A final check of the office and she was gone, walking down the corridor to the elevator with Mulder barely visible at her side. Leaving the office each night with him had become a comfortable routine, a patch of normality in an otherwise extremely abnormal situation. 

As they waited for the elevator to arrive, she wondered if her reluctance to include Simon in the secret was simply a desire to keep Mulder to herself. She studied the hazy form of her partner as he waited beside her. To her admittedly unskilled eyes, he looked different. Maybe he was still stressed out from his extreme exertions in Bryson's lair, but he seemed diminished somehow. 

The sound of the elevator arriving was Mulder's signal to disappear. Recently, he had taken to going directly to her car and waiting for her; avoiding the walk through the upper halls of the Hoover Building. Tonight he stayed with her, keeping his hand lightly touching her back as she entered the elevator. Knowing he was there, beside her, was reassuring. Even in the crowded hallways, she felt him shadowing her and saw the ripple effect of his presence in the shivers and odd looks of the people they passed.

Taking advantage of the nearly deserted garage, she reached out and touched the edge of the transparent fog drifting beside her. They had determined that this hazy half-materialized form was invisible to most people. So far, only Skinner and Simon had sensed something unusual. For convenience sake and to give her something to focus on, Mulder adopted this form whenever they were in public, but not in a crowd. At her touch, Mulder solidified slightly, until she could make out the physical features of his face and body.

"I'm fine, really," she reassured him by touch and words. He didn't look convinced, but he nodded.

"See you at home," he whispered softly, brushing his fingers against the hand resting on his arm. "Call if you need me or get stuck," he said as he slowly dematerialized until nothing was left but his voice.

Scully felt him leave. The air simply felt empty. There was no other way she could describe the sensation of Mulder not being there. Her ability to sense his presence had developed to extraordinary levels. Unless he withdrew completely into the gray fog he described as sort of a cocoon, she could sense him moving around in the area around her. 

His silent, invisible presence had become an integral part of her life now. When he wasn't there, she felt his absence like an aching tooth. The only thing that bothered her was the fact that she couldn't read him as well as she could when he was alive. The minute signals of his body language had become muted. His eyes still betrayed him, but the language had changed and she was still learning this new dialect.

As she carefully negotiated the impending traffic jam, she let her mind drift over his recent behavior. He had been quieter than usual, almost somber at times. Death had not robbed him of his talent at deflecting her questions, but he could not deflect her doubts. Something was bothering him. As long as they were discussing what to do about Simon, this weekend, she intended to find out what Mulder's problem was. She might lament his talent for mischief, but it was part of who he was and its absence was unnerving. 

"Do ghosts get depressed?" she wondered aloud as she turned her entire attention to getting home in one piece. Rush-hour traffic, snow, and Washington drivers required complete and total attention to avoid joining in on the ever-popular fender benders. 

She wished Mulder were here, but they had agreed that his presence in the car was too distracting. Scully made a mental note to revise this agreement. Traffic jams required some healthy distraction. Hoping she wouldn't startle him, she called out to him, trying to send reassurance through the link. She had no idea how this worked, but she knew Mulder could hear her call him somehow.

A soft whistle in a minor key announced his arrival, followed by, "You called?" Mulder materialized in the passenger seat, barely visible, even to her.

"It's OK, Mulder. I really doubt if anyone out there will recognize you," she admonished him.

"You forget what happens when I materialize fully, Scully. Do you really want to be chipping frozen fog off the inside of your windows for the next ten miles?" he asked with a cocky smile. 

She was relieved to find him in a good mood. Maybe he was glad to be called. She filed this thought away for consideration. Maybe she was too sparing with the times she really wanted him around, but didn't want to impose. 

They spent the remainder of the long, slow trip home talking over old cases and debating over the paranormal. Scully was having a hard time holding to her usual strict scientific party line since she was aware that she was debating the matter with a ghost, scarcely an orthodox scientific event. It was pleasant just to relax, talk about nothing important, and simply enjoy being together. 

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Mulder faded away completely once Scully turned into the driveway for her apartment complex. He had enjoyed the drive. It had been way too long since they had just kicked back and enjoyed being in a car together. Usually she preferred making the commute alone. He distracted her, if he remembered how she phrased the request for solitude correctly. Anxious not to make a pest of himself, he'd agreed. At the end of every workday, he disappeared into the ether until he heard her call him when she got home. She had adapted remarkably well to his reappearance; he didn't want to press his luck.

Speaking of luck, it appeared that his had just run out. It was inevitable that Simon would begin to put the pieces together, but this afternoon's fiasco couldn't have come at a worse time. Simon was proving to be entirely too sensitive to even the slightest hint of his presence. In the last three weeks, Mulder could count on one hand the times when he felt safe enough to risk even the barest manifestation when Simon was anywhere nearby. He had to resort to existing as a thin mist hiding in the darkest corners of the office. While Scully seemed to know when he was around, she didn't seem to realize how much distance he had to keep between himself and Simon.

His usual practice in the field was to maintain a tenuous contact with Scully. This arrangement had been the result of a long series of discussions that had gotten heated at times when he balked at her demands that he not try to over-protect her. Mulder quickly realized that his definition of over-protectiveness and Scully's were miles apart. Eventually, he had given in; he really had no choice. She promised to tell him when she wanted his assistance. He would provide said assistance as unobtrusively as possible. 

For the most part, he had been able to comply. There had been a few incidents when he had sparked a near electrical storm out of sheer worry, but he had tried not to interfere. Scully was very sparing in her use of his unique talents. Other than the cost to his peace of mind in terminal frustration and worry, Mulder conceded that she deserved the chance to shine on her own. 

This afternoon, things went terribly wrong. Even now, nearly six hours later, he could still feel the flash of terror as he realized that Scully had activated the trap which had armed all the other traps in Bryson's house. The leaden click as she stepped onto the pressure plate chilled his soul and haunted him with the premonition of her death throughout the ordeal of guiding her through the maze.

He had taken a big chance yelling at Scully the way he had, but fear overrode all other considerations. Half a block away, dogs howled and Simon actually flinched before looking for the source of the shout. Anyone with a grain of psychic ability must have heard him. Scully was so startled she recoiled. Simon nearly got to witness the full manifestation of a panicked ghost when Mulder tried to materialize enough to keep weight on the pressure plate. One of the other agents made a nervous comment about smoke grenades, so Mulder was fairly sure Simon had seen this amorphous blob of haze suddenly appear in front of his partner.

All in all, Mulder knew he had handled the situation poorly, but there hadn't been a lot of time to map out a discreet plan of action. He had done his best and luckily it was enough to guide Scully through the traps in time to rescue the hostages. Mulder had barely restrained the urge to tear Bryson apart. If Scully had been a hair's breath slower in arriving, she might have come through the door to find the walls splattered with Bryson's remains. The static electricity in the room was fierce until Mulder fled the area. Scully didn't need to be distracted by his emotional outbursts when she was trying to give a coherent report to the ASAC.

For most of the afternoon he had been careful to keep his presence at the lowest possible level; just a hint of a touch now and then to let Scully know he was still beside her. He sensed her concern and wondered why she was so worried about him when she had nearly been blown into the afterworld. She really needed to get her priorities straightened out, he muttered with a sigh just as the front door opened with a blast of cold air.

"Mulder, we need to talk," Scully announced as she shook the snow off her coat and hung it up to dry. Mulder materialized slowly in the far corner of the room and nodded. Sometimes it seemed that his entire afterlife was spent in having significant conversations with Scully. Perhaps this was his atonement for relying so heavily on the bond between them that often made words redundant. He missed the old ways they had of talking with their eyes, the slightest change in expression, even the way they moved their bodies, all spoken eloquently of their changing moods, fears and, above all, the unshakable trust they shared.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Scully bustled around the apartment, starting water for tea and changing into sweats while Mulder anticipated the impending conversation. Whenever Scully shifted into bustling mode, Mulder made a point to stay out of her way or vanish altogether if that seemed best. Since Scully had clearly stated her intention to talk with him, he stayed put and visible.

Perched on the back of an easy chair, feet dangling through the cushions, he tried to gauge her mood. She was humming, a good sign, and her tea of choice was orange spice, a nice mellow-mood tea. This was looking promising. Analyzing the situation, Mulder decided that Scully wasn't preparing to deliver a lecture. The situation with Simon was inevitable. It was just bad timing that the crisis came now and not three to four months down the road when he and Scully had gotten more used to each other. 

They made a damn fine pair, in his opinion. He had told Scully this on more than one occasion. He had not mentioned that admitting this fact had come after several long wrestling matches with his jealousy. His reward was seeing Scully relax and begin to flex her investigative muscles with Simon. He was still jealous, but he was learning to go off somewhere far away from Scully and vent. 

The problem in this case was acerbated by his damn lingering sense of guilt for haunting her. He transformed every flub into a serious transgression or worse. He could get inside the heads of psychopaths, but his own psyche was a mystery. Death was supposed to answer questions. Not only wasn't he getting answers, he was getting a whole new set of questions.

Actually, as he recalled, Scully had only lectured him a handful of times, usually when some of his antics had tried her patience or when she was simply tired of trying to reconcile science and ghosts. At least she had made it clear that no matter how frustrated or irritated she got, she did not intend to tell him to get lost.

" . . . tree tomorrow," Scully finished saying as she collapsed wearily into her favorite overstuffed chair. She closed her eyes and inhaled the spicy scent of the tea with a sigh.

"Sorry, Scully, I phased out for a moment. What's this about a tree?" Mulder gave her a apologetic smile as he flopped down to sit on the chair opposite her.

"Tree, as in Christmas tree, Mulder," she responded with a touch of exasperation.

"Oh yeah. Sorry, my parents didn't go in for Christmas very much. We just sort of exchanged gifts on Christmas morning beside the fireplace. No trees, lights or anything else that required a lot of fuss and bother to put up or take down." Mulder tried to make the comment sound as matter of fact as he could. 

One of the reasons he never really missed Christmas was because he never really knew what one was. It was clear that Scully came from a family with a lot of Christmas traditions. It might be interesting to see what a real Christmas was like. 

"Uh, Scully, your neighbors might get a little suspicious if they see a tree walking into your apartment all by itself."

"I'll just tell them I was a very good girl this year, so Santa loaned me one of his elves."

The lateral shift in Scully's mood disconcerted him. He was prepared for a range of reactions to the day's events; humor wasn't one he had anticipated. He couldn't decide if Scully was just employing a new avoidance technique or whether she genuinely was relaxed enough to joke.

"Oh, Mulder, the look on your face," Scully chuckled as she shook her head. She had him at a severe disadvantage since he couldn't check a mirror to see himself. He suspected that his expression was a conglomeration of indecision and amusement with a touch of bewilderment thrown in for good measure.

"Gotcha." 

Scully's smile was still gleeful and definitely gloating. Mulder laughed ruefully and acknowledged her victory. He kept forgetting how wicked her sense of humor was when she decided to let go of the restraints she kept on it.

"Yes, Mulder, I'm concerned about what to tell Simon. I'm also trying to come to terms with what happened today. If I wasn't holding onto this tea mug, my hands would be shaking." 

Scully took a deep breath and let it out in a long breathy sigh. Now that he was looking for the signs, he could see the slight tremors that shook her shoulders. He was willing to bet that they weren't all due to his frigid presence. Guilt, relief, and sadness clouded her eyes before she closed them and took in another deep breath. This time she exhaled slowly and when she opened her eyes, they were clear.

"I'm alive. The rest of the team is alive and, most importantly, the hostages are alive." 

Scully was serious now. Clearly she was talking to him rather than trying to convince herself that something good had come out of the near-disaster.

"You did most of it, Scully. You kept your head and took control in a scenario where the odds were solidly against you," Mulder assured her. He wanted her to understand how much he admired the way she handled Simon and the local police in a critical situation.

"*We* did it. All the cool heads in the world wouldn't have made a difference in that maze if you hadn't been able to warn me about the traps and then guide me through the maze." 

Both of them knew the ghastly possibilities in the might-have-beens of Bryson's plan. No one would have come out of that house alive or even in one piece. Bryson had enough C4 planted to obliterate a city block. Even in his disembodied form, Mulder quailed at the thought of the destruction Bryson had planned to unleash. A madman had orchestrated his own Gotterdammerung and damn near succeeded.

"You have no idea how close to panic I was," Mulder confessed.

"I couldn't tell. I just heard your steady voice guiding me. You being there saved all of our lives." Scully dismissed the matter of Mulder's fear.

"That's what scares me," Mulder admitted slowly. The gnawing fear that had been simmering in his subconscious in the long hours since Bryson had been killed was beginning to surface and take solid form. He was tempted to bolt, but forced himself to stand fast. Besides, if what he feared was true, then there was no place he could run to. Better not to make Scully's last memory of him be one of panicked flight.

Scully gave him a startled look. It was obvious to him that she had been expecting a display of guilt. Fear was unexpected. She waited for him to continue.

Mulder wondered if he could explain his reaction. His promise not to run away and try to deal with his problems alone was proving to be difficult to deal with. A lifetime of habit wasn't easy to break in just five months. Now, it was even easier for him to retreat where Scully couldn't find him and drag his fears and doubts out into the light, but his promise held him fast. 

"What if this is the task I was sent back to accomplish?" Mulder knew it sounded petty and he really doubted if Scully would understand the extent of his fear, but he would try to explain without sounding like a dependent idiot.

To his relief, Scully didn't immediately dismiss his comment, but sat back and gave the matter her full attention. Her expression changed as she considered the problem from all angles. Science might not be much help, but the scientific method was still a reliable way to examine problems. He might have, and still did, disagree with some of the conclusions she drew from this way of examining the evidence, but the questions she asked and the scrutiny she gave was invaluable in sifting out the wheat from the chaff. 

As he waited, Mulder remembered how, as a boy, faced with the insurmountable task of coping with the cold, angry silence of his truncated family, he had run to his secret place to fret and think. There he could drop his defenses and let his misery show. He had spent hours perched on a sea-swept rock, just below their deserted summer-house on Rhode Island, trying to sort out his grief and his guilt until the sea drove him back to shore. Once or twice he had actually considered letting the sea take him and swallow him up, but there was always Samantha, waiting for him to redeem his pledge to find her. Oddly, as strange as it felt to allow someone access to his private fears, Scully was now his secret place. Unlike the sea, she didn't offer him storms or the lure of obliteration, but instead offered him a safe harbor from his own storms. Perhaps this shared bond with the sea was at the central core of the bond that held them together, in spite of their frequent disagreements, even in the face of death. It was an interesting point to ponder. Hopefully, he would not have to ponder it stuck off in a corner of the afterworld somewhere alone.

"Why would you suppose that this was the task?" Scully asked slowly. Mulder felt like a stray piece of evidence being examined under a microscope. 

"It fits the criteria. Gordon wasn't exactly forthcoming, but I got the impression I had something to do that only I could do. Then my tenure as a ghost would be revoked." Mulder tried to remember the exact words used by the angel he knew only as Gordon. A little difficult since Gordon communicated more by impression and emotion than with words. Now that was going to be fun to explain to Scully.

"That could mean quite a few things. Have you seen this Gordon around since the incident this afternoon?"

A reasonable question. Mulder tried to remember if he had felt that peculiar feeling of serenity that surrounded Gordon. As far as he could tell, serenity hadn't even been close to the emotions swirling around in his mind since he heard the awful click of a pressure mine being activated by Scully's foot.

"No," Mulder admitted, feeling even more foolish for trying to share his fears which were about as insubstantial as himself.

Scully nodded as if she had expected this answer. Her expression didn't change, but she seemed to relax as she studied him. Mulder could sense worry, confusion and curiosity, but no exasperation or irritation. Apparently his confession of fear was another piece to a puzzle she was constructing. From the look in her eyes, she was close to unraveling the mystery. He wished he knew what he had been doing to create the mystery. 

"What's the problem, Mulder?" she asked softly, even gently. He sensed the resolve and felt her picking her way through his defenses in that stubborn, insistent manner she had that both irritated and comforted him. 

"Hey, you react to stress by making hot tea and taking a long soak in a bubble bath. I can't exactly go out for a five-mile run. Well, I could, but it's not quite the same. Guess leaping to conclusions is my way of channeling stress these days," Mulder quipped, hoping to divert her attention. He wasn't sure what she was stalking, but old habits died hard and even with his promise, he was reluctant to let her pry around inside his mind.

"It's more than just today. What's wrong? Ever since Thanksgiving, there has been something gnawing at you. You've been too quiet, almost depressed, if ghosts get depressed," Scully continued relentlessly. She did smile at her own attempt to psychoanalyze a ghost. Mulder tried to smile back, but it was a lame attempt. Damn, she was good, or else he was getting extremely sloppy in hiding his emotions.

"How would I know? No one gave me a book on how to be a ghost," he retorted in a tone more morose than he intended. 

Without answering him, Scully stood up and walked over to him. Warily, Mulder stood up and watched her approach, fighting an urge to flee. In life, these kind of raw emotional moments always held the potential for breaking through the last barrier between them and unbalancing their delicate perch on the razor's edge. Now, thinking herself safe, Scully constantly pushed the boundary. Because he couldn't find a way to tell her that even though he was dead and only a spirit, he retained the passion and desires of a living man, she felt free to be more open with physical contact. He felt a hug looming and in his present state, he wasn't sure he had the strength of will to push her away.

As small as she was, he felt himself being folded into her arms. Fear, passion, need, even love seethed within him. He stood there, arms to his side, not daring to make a move to return the embrace; afraid that once he started he would not be able to stop.

"It will be OK, Mulder. Whatever it is that's bothering you, we can deal with it, just like we dealt with Bryson and his traps." Scully gave him a final hug and stepped back. He gave her an apologetic shrug for his lack of participation in the embrace. There was an odd expression on her face that he had never seen before. It stirred fear and desire in equal measure.

Her eyes were burning. Apparently the desire and passion wasn't entirely one-sided. One false step and they would cross a line with consequences he couldn't even begin to imagine. He couldn't speak, but he managed to shake his head in answer to her unspoken question. His form was smoky black with barely suppressed passion. If she beckoned, he knew he would go wherever she bade him, even if it damned him for all eternity.

"Mulder, would you mind terribly disappearing until I go to sleep?" she asked in a husky voice. "I'm sorry. Seeing you makes me realize the chances that we squandered and can't get back again," she confessed. Her eyes were banked fires now, covered with a mist of regrets.

"Scully, you aren't the only one with regrets. We had all the time in the world, I thought." Mulder paused with a sad smile. "Get some sleep. Tomorrow, go see your mother and let her help you buy a tree. Do the normal things you do every Christmas. I think we both need time to come to terms with what happened today. I'll drop by when you get home and we'll talk about Simon and whatever else you want to talk about. Deal?" Mulder offered his hand. It was risky, but if things had gone so far between them that a simple handshake ignited a bonfire, then he needed to find this out while he still clung to a few shreds of self-control.

"You're trying to get rid of me," Scully accused, with a twitch of her lips as she attempted to squelch a smile. The air lightened as passions began to retreat back into the silent places in their hearts. Humor was always his best defense and offense when his emotional barriers were threatened.

"No, just trying not to monopolize you. I'll be around. If you need me, just call."

"OK, deal." Scully took his hand. Mulder felt the fire's breath, but nothing more. They had always been experts at self-denial. 

Smiling, Mulder let himself fade into the gray fog that was his resting place. To his relief, there was no hint that Gordon was anywhere about. Maybe his fear was just his way of reacting to stress. Someone really needed to write a handbook for ghosts. He drifted in formlessness wondering how many other poor ghosts were out there trying to figure out the mechanics of their situation and having about as hard a time adapting as he was.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Saturday, December 19

 

It was past midnight when Mulder returned to Scully's house. Even before he materialized as a filmy gray mist, he sensed that she was asleep. Her dreams were troubled. She was tangled in the covers as if she had fought a fierce battle, only to be consumed by the blankets and dragged into sleep. 

"Just rest. I'm here. Nothing can harm you." 

Over and over he whispered this reassurance. Nightmares were beyond his province, but he hoped she would take comfort from his presence and relax. He wished he could sing even passably well. However, death had not magically given him a pleasing baritone. In fact, when he considered the matter carefully, death really hadn't made any improvements on the original Mulder-model - unless you counted the ability to move through walls. Oh, yes, there was also the remarkable talent for turning his best friend into an iceberg every time he touched her, so even soothing caresses were out.

As if she could sense him, Scully sighed and snuggled into the covers. Her restless gasps relaxed into a slow rhythmic breathing as whatever nightmares plagued her lost their grip and allowed her to fade into a deep dreamless sleep. Mulder carefully sat down on the end of the bed and watched her sleep until first light seeped into the room and Scully began stirring upwards towards wakefulness. 

"Enjoy the day, Scully. You've earned it. See you later," he whispered as he faded into the ether.

Faced with an entire day to amuse himself, Mulder decided to pay the Gunmen a visit. For several weeks now he had been leaving cryptic notes on their computers, defying their best security efforts. At first the guys had been alarmed, convinced that the MIBs were about to descend and cart them away to anonymous prison cells. When several weeks passed with no midnight raids by government storm troopers, the notes turned into a game between them and their unknown hacker. Mulder had hovered in a corner watching as Langly and Frohike tore apart the computers and rebuilt them from scratch while Byers tested and re-tested every communications line they used. Impressed by this Herculean effort, Mulder waited for several days after this mammoth effort before leaving another note. 

Today, Mulder simply wanted company. The notes were fun, a way of tweaking the guys' paranoia, but he didn't want to scare them too badly. He was hoping that eventually they'd start considering the extreme notion that they had a ghost. Frohike looked like he was beginning to get suspicious. Every so often, he'd spin around and glare into the shadowy corners of their office as if looking for someone. Knowing Frohike, there should be some very fancy surveillance equipment set up to catch their intruder in the act. The question for Mulder now was whether he *wanted* to be caught. 

To his surprise, Frohike was alone when he arrived. Byers and Langly were nowhere in the building, as far as he could tell. There was only one living soul within a fifty-foot radius and he was sitting across the office in front of his computer. There were gadgets he couldn't even begin to identify set up in every corner of the room. Frohike obviously believed in electronic overkill. A low buzz sounded when Mulder emerged out of the ether as a hazy shadow in dark corner as far from Frohike as he could manage. Startled, Mulder spun around and came face-to-face with a hypersensitive temperature gauge. Frohike was not fooling around. A flash of light behind him was punctuated by a triumphant "Gotcha" from Frohike.

Damn. Now he remembered Frohike's passionate belief that ghosts could be caught on film with the proper electronic equipment and special cameras. Mulder wondered if Frohike could be bribed to keep silent about this. He had no intention of showing up as a feature article in "The Lone Gunman." The only saving grace was that the most Frohike was going to be able to develop should be a filmy mist, vaguely man-sized, coalescing in the corner. Scully, in the old days, would have dismissed it as a defect in the film or some other naturally occurring phenomena. 

"Man, Byers is going to owe me. I told him we were haunted," Frohike muttered happily to himself as he reset the camera. So far, it didn't sound like he had any suspicion that the haunt was his old friend. Poised on the verge of retreating back into the ether, Mulder considered whether to let Frohike in on the secret. He trusted him, even if Frohike was more paranoid than he ever was. It might be nice to have someone other than Scully to talk to when being dead got to be too much to bear alone.

Fascinated by the gadgetry, Mulder wondered if this was what a mouse felt like trapped inside an electronic mousetrap. Unlike the unlucky mouse, however, he could leave whenever he wanted. The question was whether he wanted to. Scully would, no doubt, have persuasive arguments in favor of him beating an immediate retreat. Her arguments would probably be logical and eminently rational, but his entire existence right now was neither logical nor rational. Maybe letting Frohike know about him and seeing how he reacted might help him predict how Simon would react to knowing that his partnership with Scully was a threesome. It might also help Scully to know that she had someone to talk to about having a ghost in her life. Frohike was a good listener and he would rather die than hurt Scully.

Ultimately, Mulder knew he was a gambler. Alive, he had always pushed his luck, trying to grab the gold ring. That he failed more often than he succeeded never stopped him from trying the next time around. He was tired of being cautious. Letting a few people know he was still around wasn't going to be like announcing his existence on the evening news. As far as he knew, there were no union rules about manifesting when and where he chose. It was his option, apparently. Other than Scully being upset with him, not a particularly new situation, he really didn't see any reason not to tell Frohike that he was still around.

Mulder waited until Frohike was busy rearranging the cameras. He was still a bit shy about materializing in front of someone. It felt a little too intimate, almost like a striptease. Even now, if he didn't give adequate warning ahead of time, Scully tended to jump and gasp. Frohike would have no warning at all. Hopefully his heart was up to the shock. Mulder paused a moment to listen to the rhythm of Frohike's pulse and decided that it sounded strong enough to cope. 

At the last moment, Mulder decided to just appear, rather than ease into the materialization. Frohike's attention was distracted and it only took a moment for Mulder to become a semi-opaque figure in the corner of the room. He was still mostly obscured by shadow, but he was visible and recognizable, at least to people who knew him.

"Hey." Not very original, but Mulder couldn't really think of anything witty to say. 

"What the hell?" Frohike spun around, alarmed at the sound of someone else's voice. Capturing manifestations on film was one thing. Hearing voices out of thin air was something else entirely.

"Hi," Mulder said neutrally. 

"Who are you and how did you get in here?" Frohike demanded, irritation and alarm sharing equal time in his tone. So far he hadn't twigged on to the fact that the manifestation he had just captured on film had a voice and an identity.

"It's me, Frohike. The guy who enlarged your tape collection about six months ago," Mulder replied with a bit of resigned humor. Frohike had dutifully shown up when Scully cleared out his belongings to collect the two boxes of erotica and seven boxes of assorted books and papers that Mulder indicated were to go to him. Those tapes had been a long-standing joke between him and Frohike, but it was obvious that the man never wanted or expected to collect on the joke.

Frohike peered at the corner where he heard the voice. Mulder heard a tape player being activated and suspected that motion sensors and other electronic gizmos were being pointed in his direction. From his point of view it was getting very noisy in here as the electronic hum began to grate on his senses. Some of the sound waves actually tickled.

"Turn off the surveillance equipment, Frohike. It's messing with my ectoplasm." Mulder decided that the only way to convince his friend that it was really him was to be as matter-of-fact about the situation as possible. At least with Frohike, the issue of whether ghosts existed was already a given. There were times he wondered if Scully had ever really come to terms with the implications of his appearance. He suspected that she merely compartmentalized his existence since she still maintained a strong skeptical streak towards all other evidence of paranormal activity. How she did that without spraining her mind was almost an X-File in itself.

Scowling, Frohike reached over a flipped a switch. A spotlight as bright as a small sun was pointed towards the corner where Mulder stood. Reflexively, Mulder cursed and tried to shield his eyes from the high intensity beam of light before he realized that while the light was warm, he wasn't at all affected by the brilliance. Taking his hand down, he stood there in the light wondering how much of his form Frohike could see in the light. To his surprise, he could see perfectly well through the spotlight. Frohike was frowning and mumbling to himself. Mulder squelched a laugh at the variety of curses Frohike was calling down on the head of whoever was playing this practical joke.

"It's no joke, Frohike. I'm really here." Mulder tried the calm, reasonable approach again. Frohike was turning out to be more stubborn than he anticipated. This could be fun, he thought with a spark of his old mischief rising to the forefront.

"Yeah," he replied scornfully. "Langly, I'm going to change the locks on the beer cooler if this is your doing. Damn it, guys, this isn't funny." Frohike actually sounded choked up, almost an angry sob making his curses virtually unintelligible as he started searching for something Mulder thought he called a holographic video projector.

"Frohike," Mulder said quietly as he moved silently over to his friend's side. "It's me." Mulder laid a hand on Frohike's shoulder. There was no easy way to do this. Mulder felt Frohike's shuddering gasp and braced himself for the inevitable flinch when he realized that there was a ghost touching him. One thing Mulder had learned, however skeptical someone was, no amount of rationalization could explain away the cold a ghost's touch produced. Scully said it was like the marrow in her bones turned to ice. She also said that it did get better as she got used to it, but every single time he touched her, he saw the flinch in her eyes as she felt death.

"What the hell?" Frohike shuddered and pulled away, looking wild-eyed at the phantom he saw standing beside him. This was no holographic projection. His bones ached with the cold the thing radiated.

"It's really me, Frohike." Mulder stepped back about five feet. He had learned that when he was in this smoky opaque form, he produced an aura of intense cold in a five-foot radius. Despite his best efforts and all of Scully's scientific investigation, he still didn't know where the cold came from or what caused it. Philosophically he supposed he simply opened up a doorway between dimensions. Wasn't it Luther Boggs who said that death was a cold, dark place? 

"Mulder?" Frohike asked incredulously. 

"Yeah," Mulder replied simply. He moved over to a table and sat down, selecting a clear spot away from some of the more sensitive computer equipment. No need to flash-freeze the guys' computers.

"Too frigging amazing," Frohike said with a combination of awe and stunned realization that a ghost was sitting six feet away talking to him. 

Mulder watched as his friend came to terms with meeting the paranormal face-to-face. It was always interesting to see how people who professed a belief in ghosts actually reacted to seeing one. To his relief, Frohike seemed to be adjusting fairly well, even getting this speculative look in his eyes as he considered all the ramifications of the situation.

"What happened? You get lost?" Frohike asked with a chuckle. Mulder's sense of direction, in Frohike's opinion, was cavalier at the best of times.

"Nah, I flunked harp-playing 102," Mulder retorted. It felt good to fall back into the old routine. Playing tricks on the Gunmen was no substitute for actively participating in one of their discussions.

"They have entrance exams?" Frohike started to look a bit concerned at the notion.

"No, but they have some really tough bouncers at the gates. One of them decided that heaven wasn't ready for me yet and sent me back to the bush leagues. So, here I am."

"Son of a bitch. Who thought up that rule?" Frohike demanded irritably.

"God knows," Mulder quipped with a hope that deities and archangels had better things to do than eavesdrop on his conversations.

"Why didn't you stop by earlier?" Frohike sounded wounded, but he didn't look too offended. There was a definite sparkle in his eyes as he settled in for a chat.

"I've been by, I just . . . I couldn't seem to find the right time. It's rather awkward just appearing and announcing 'hey guys, I'm a ghost.' Scully knows about me, as does a very old friend we ran into on a case. Oh, and a very eccentric lady somewhere in St. Louis who summons ghosts to escort children on Halloween, but other than that, no one else knows I'm still around."

"I see your point. Still, it's good to have you back. Are you really a ghost?"

"Yeah. Believe me, it's not all that it's cracked up to be. For the most part, it gets pretty boring. This is not a career move I recommend," Mulder replied in a resigned tone. Frohike knew him well enough to read between the lines and understand what he wasn't saying about the loneliness.

"Langly is going to be pissed at you. He's run so many virus scans that his computer flinches every time he comes near it. He was certain someone had hacked us and deposited a new super virus in our system." Frohike grinned. Mulder sensed that a bet had just been won in the ongoing friendly war between his two friends. 

"I'll make it up to him. I did leave him clues," Mulder protested in a vain attempt to defend himself.

"Well, we weren't exactly expecting ghosts. I mean, I believe in them, but not in my own home."

"Where are they?" 

"I sent them out for groceries. I told them that if we were haunted, the fewer people cluttering up the offices the better. Man, will they be surprised when they come back and find you here." Frohike paused. "You are sticking around until they get back, aren't you?"

"Unless Scully needs me. Why? Afraid Langly and Byers won't believe you?"

"You got something better to do?" Frohike asked curiously.

Mulder made a show of thinking about the question before shaking his head. "No, actually, I don't."

"Could I interest you in an exclusive interview for our next issue?" There was definitely a hopeful note to Frohike's voice.

"No. Don't even think about trying to make me into a feature story," Mulder warned sternly, anxious to squelch Frohike's journalistic enthusiasm before it got both of them into trouble. He understood his friend's zeal, but he didn't need the publicity. 

"Where's your sense of adventure?" Frohike replied plaintively.

"Being a ghost is all the adventure I can cope with at one time." Mulder paused for effect, then fired off the clincher. "Do you want to see Scully hurt just to boost your circulation figures?"

"That's a low blow," Frohike protested, but the reporter's gleam disappeared from his eyes. "It would have been a great story," he commented sadly.

Mulder relented, just a bit. He remembered how it felt to have a genuine paranormal event in his grasp only to see it snatched away from him. 

"I promise, if I ever decide to go public, you'll get exclusive rights."

"Deal." Frohike perked up and grinned. Mulder knew he'd keep the secret and seemed to be pleased that Mulder trusted him to keep quiet. "Hey, do you mind if I check out what the cameras caught? Langly was sure this setup wouldn't work."

Mulder squelched the feeling that he was betraying a horde of unwitting ghosts by cooperating with Frohike. As far as he could tell, on admittedly limited experience, it was every ghost for himself out here. Besides, if a ghost was annoying, it needed to be reminded to behave. Just because someone was dead didn't excuse a lapse of manners.

Mulder watched from a safe distance as Frohike carefully developed his film. The profane muttering coming from the dark room told him that all Frohike got for his trouble was a fogged film. He had a feeling that Frohike would keep on trying, especially since he had a ghost to experiment on. 

Preoccupied with his film, Frohike didn't hear the outer door open, but Mulder did. He was pretty sure it was Langly and Byers, but he discretely faded into the shadows just in case. A ripple in the odd foggy world he existed in distracted him. It wasn't like anything he had felt before. Without a second thought he sped towards Scully, who he discovered, was chatting with her mother over an early brunch at a small cafe. She looked relaxed and happy. Obviously whatever the ripple was, it wasn't a call from her. If she was fine, then why did he sense a darkness gathering around her. Hovering wasn't going to do any good and would only alert her to his presence. She seemed to be fine. He was going to have to trust her more than his instincts, but he knew that wouldn't stop him from worrying.

"Damn," Mulder swore as he realized that he'd left Frohike in the lurch with Byers and Langly. This called for an extra-special appearance. It shouldn't be difficult to make this lapse up to Frohike. Mulder considered various stage entrance plans as he sped back to his friends. 

"Hey, Frohike, caught any ghosts yet?" Langly shouted good-naturedly as he came into the office, closely followed by an amused Byers. They both just stared at the elaborate surveillance setup and shook their heads.

"You might say that. Hey, where'd he go?" Frohike asked in alarm as he came out of the dark room and realized that Mulder wasn't there.

"Who?" Byers asked curiously, walking over to look at the corner Frohike was staring at. "There's nothing here, Frohike."

"Have you been at the cooking sherry again?" Langly asked with a sigh. "This kind of joke isn't funny," he admonished his friend.

"It's no joke. We have a ghost. I was just talking with him," Frohike protested as he scanned the room. "Damn."

Mulder arrived and listened to the teasing for a moment. Frohike was adamant that he had found a ghost, but wasn't revealing who it was. Byers was examining the corner where Frohike insisted the ghost walked out from. Mulder grinned as he latched onto the perfect entrance line.

"Right here?" Byers asked skeptically from the corner. Abruptly, he felt something cold brush up against him and shuddered. Langly's eyes grew wide and Byers spun around to see what his friend was staring at.

"Hi, guys," Mulder said with a smile. Byers jumped back as his eyes bulged in shock. 

"Frohike, if this is your idea of a joke. . . ." Langly's voice trailed off as Mulder moved just close enough to let him feel his cold aura. Byers took one look at his harrowed expression and quickly moved out of the vicinity.

"Guys, this is our ghost." Frohike sounded like a fond parent. Mulder scowled at him and he quickly shut up, but from his expression, he was enjoying the payback. Mulder suspected that he had come in for a lot of teasing from Byers and Langly before they left him alone with his experiment.

"Sorry, Byers. You were crowding me and you really didn't want me going through you," Mulder apologized in a matter-of-fact tone as he fully materialized and stepped back so that none of his friends were within range of his aura. Byers appeared ready to bolt while Langly was attempting to control a shudder. Frohike, on the other hand, having slightly more experience, was grinning as if he was personally responsible for Mulder's return.

"Mulder?" Langly asked cautiously as he tried to get his voice to work.

"Yeah. It's me. I'm a ghost. That about covers the situation." Mulder was beginning to realize that there was a depressing similarity to the conversation he had when he announced his presence to Scully. Mulder smiled encouragingly at his friends, willing them to accept him even if he was not entirely cohesive anymore.

"How long have you been around?" Byers asked in a cracking voice. His breathing was settling down and Mulder sensed that his heart rate was beginning to slow down as well. Paranoid his friends might be, but they rallied to surprises remarkably fast.

"Since that damn ball made oatmeal out of my brains. I've been hanging around with Scully, but I missed you guys. I did leave you clues, but I guess they weren't very obvious." Mulder double-checked to make sure he was mostly opaque and semi-solid before lounging in a chair. Maybe if he acted normal, the guys would begin to relax and just accept him as a very eccentric, but friendly, apparition.

"Mulder, only you would consider those notes as clues," Langly griped through a dawning smile. "You sticking around, or are you just passing through?"

"I'm here for awhile. It's rather confusing, but apparently there's something I have to do before I get to pass Go and get into heaven, or whatever is out there," Mulder said with a resigned shrug. 

"Hey, can you really pass through walls and stuff?" Langly suddenly looked very hopeful.

"Yes, but I can only go where I've been when I was alive. No, I can't break into the Pentagon's secret files because I don't know where they are. Besides, how would you explain how you got hold of the secrets?" Mulder tried not to laugh at the looks of dismay and disappointment on the faces of his three conspiratorial friends.

"Oh well, couldn't hurt to hope," Langly conceded. 

The conversation began drifting into the nature of ghosts, what the three had been up to since his death, and the state of the guys' ongoing attempts to hack into the vast network of secret government files they believed existed. Mulder relaxed as he slipped back into the easy camaraderie he had always shared with these three unlikely friends. It was nearly supper time before he realized that he hadn't missed Scully once, nor had she tried to contact him. Maybe they both needed this break. He'd try to remember that in the future and give her more time to do her own thing without him hovering nearby.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

A slight tug alerted him to Scully's call. It was nearly seven o'clock; she must be home by now. He hoped she had enjoyed the day. Spending the day with his friends had been relaxing. He could almost forget that he was a ghost -- almost.

"Sorry, guys, gotta go. If you want me, just call my name and think about needing to see me. I don't know how I hear you, but I do," Mulder explained cheerfully. This could be interesting. Was there a way to distinguish who was calling him? If it worked like he thought, a type of harmonic resonance, then he ought to be able to tell Frohike's and Scully's calls apart. "I'll give you warning before I materialize, just to be on the safe side."

Byers looked relieved at that. "It's good to have you back, Mulder," he said seriously. 

"Yeah, it's been way too dull," Langly added with a smile. Of the three of them, Langly seemed to be taking his ghostly status in stride. Byers was wary, almost twitchy, while Frohike kept trying to analyze him, in a friendly way. Mulder couldn't really blame him. He supposed, if the situation had been reversed, that he would be intensely curious about the physical make-up of a ghostly apparition. The problem was, Frohike's electronic gadgets tickled.

"Take care, man. No telling who's watching," Frohike cautioned. Despite his curiosity, Frohike was the one who seemed to understand how complex and uncertain Mulder's new existence was. 

Another tug reminded him that Scully was waiting. Mulder waved as he faded from view and followed the thread that bound him to Scully with unerring accuracy.

"There you are. I wondered if you were lost." Scully sounded mildly irritated as she waited for him to materialize after his warning whistle. This was an unexpected mood considering how relaxed she had appeared at lunch.

"OK, what's the problem?" Mulder asked bluntly. Her call hadn't sounded particularly urgent. No danger loomed. What did a few minutes delay matter?

"Were you in here today?" Scully asked sharply. Her body language was telling him that she was in full investigative mode, but her eyes were worried. Mulder decided to answer the eyes.

"What happened?" His tone was calm and curious, meant to soothe rather than agitate. Something had happened to alarm her. They didn't need to lapse into an accidental argument because he took umbrage at her tone. Being dead did give him the advantage of being able to sense her heartbeat, a bit fast, and feel her mood, which was a mix of uncertainty, worry, and agitation, not all directed at him. In fact, he got the distinct impression she was hoping he'd confess to some prank so she could stop worrying and just be mad. 

Scully didn't say a word, but just stood there staring at him. Under the intensity of her gaze, Mulder began to shimmer slightly, a ghostly equivalent of fidgeting. He glanced around the room, but couldn't find anything out of place. Still, there was a sense of wrongness, very similar to the feeling he'd had earlier when he thought Scully had called him. 

"No, I didn't think you'd do something like this," she conceded with the air of a judge pronouncing a rapscallion defendant innocent. 

"Fine, now, would you like to tell me what you suspected me of doing or do I have to guess?" Mulder asked smoothly, with just a hint of a smile. He was trying to loosen her up, get her to relax from her wary defensiveness enough to talk to him. 

Without a word, Scully stepped aside. Now that he had a clear view, Mulder could see an elaborate flower display sitting on the coffee table. Gaudy white lilies and dark red roses nestled in a broad fan of ferns. It looked like it had been liberated from a funeral parlor. To Mulder, it felt like an echo of death. Just looking at it made him uneasy. This is what Scully thought he'd do? This was an obscenity in the house of the living. He couldn't quite explain in rational terms why he felt this was a death threat, but he knew with a grim certainty that whoever was responsible for this had death firmly in mind.

"I found that when I got home," she said tonelessly. Mulder recognized the signs of Scully exerting iron control over her emotions. He had to do a bit of control himself. Anger was already beginning to flicker around him like a thousand lightning bugs. Damn this ectoplasmic state where every single emotion was hung out for Scully to see. Still, it might not hurt for her to see his anger at her accusation.

"Shit, you thought I'd be capable of doing something like this," Mulder asked in a tightly controlled tone. If he still had teeth, they would be gritted around each syllable. The tiny lightning flickers were intensifying, but he was still in control. This time Scully owed him an explanation for her suspicions. 

"No one else had a key. There was no sign of forced entry. It's just gaudy enough to be something you'd like," Scully paused warily as the static electricity field around Mulder exploded. Grimly, Mulder seized control of his temper and forced it back. "If it wasn't you, then someone can get in and out of my apartment without leaving a trace. I . . .," Scully's voice trailed off as a look of sick realization hit her face. "I wanted it to be you because that was easier than the alternative," she said in a voice not much more than a whisper.

Mulder's anger flickered and died. His form wavered in a ghostly sigh as he carefully walked away from the funeral bouquet and went over to Scully. She shivered slightly, but allowed him to wrap his arms around her in a comforting hug. Her body was stiff against him as she fought against the comfort, but gradually she melted into his arms as he gently soothed her.

"It's OK, Scully. You really thought that I'd pull this kind of sick joke on you? I thought we'd settled the issue of trust." Mulder felt her flinch slightly and lightly stroked her back. They'd find a way to deal with the situation; they always did. 

He felt a slight arousal as he held her close, but ruthlessly dematerialized that part of his anatomy before it created a problem. Last night's brush with intimacy was still vivid in his memory. Sometimes being a ghost did come in handy, but it wasn't anything he'd recommend as a way of controlling lusty thoughts. 

"I may play practical jokes on occasion, but I'd never do anything to alarm you like this. You scared me with that hanging judge stare of yours. I swear I was recalling sins of omission and commission from five years back and wondering which one you'd found out about," Mulder joked with a straight face. To his relief, he felt her chuckle. Another chasm successfully bridged. They'd get through this, just like all the others. If she could laugh, then the barrier of fear was breached and now she'd be ready to talk.

"Mulder, I do trust you. Sometimes, I just don't understand you," Scully confessed a few minutes later as she slowly sipped tea and watched Mulder sitting cross-legged on her coffee table in front of her. She reached out and touched his face in a gesture that was part apology, part wistful longing. Her touch burned, but he understood her need to touch him. Somehow, all their apologies to each other involved a touch. When they connected physically, all their misunderstandings seemed to melt away. Pity they had never realized this when he was alive.

"What I don't understand is why you would even think that I'd be capable of this sort of stunt?" Mulder replied in a tight voice. He wasn't really angry at Scully, but her suspicion hurt. "Do you realize how terrified I was in Bryson's house? It's not something I'd joke about."

"I can't explain in any way that makes sense, Mulder. I just know that I was suddenly praying that this was your odd way of making me laugh about what I . . . ," Scully paused for a moment, staring at Mulder in that direct, penetrating gaze of hers. "No, what *we* went through. You were afraid, weren't you?"

Mulder nodded slowly, his eyes dark windows into the fear that nearly paralyzed him when she triggered the first trap. 

"I never realized. I mean, at the time, all I could hear was your calm, steady voice telling me where to step next. You sounded so sure of what to do that I didn't think about what you were doing or even how. I trusted you then, Mulder, with my life and the lives of the rest of the team." Again she paused, eyes hooded as she thought about something. "It's strange, I trust you implicitly about the big things. Even when I don't agree with you about the truth, I trust that you believe. Somehow, when it comes to the small stuff, I don't find it as easy to trust," she concluded slowly in a puzzled tone.

"I know. It always confused me when I was alive. To tell the truth, it still confuses me," Mulder admittedly cautiously. He wasn't sure he was ready for this conversation, but if she was willing, he'd certainly give it his best effort.

"How did we ever make such a good team?" Scully asked with a sad smile. 

"Luck. Fate. Maybe just what you said, the ability to trust each other on the big things and a willingness to argue out the small stuff." Mulder was smiling as he remembered how resolute Scully was whenever anything threatened their partnership. She might tell him he was crazy and upbraid him about his willingness to believe in the paranormal over science, but let an outsider presume to disparage him and she stood with him in an implacable wall of defiance.

Scully sighed. "I guess I should take this in and have it checked for forensic evidence." She looked doubtfully at the flowers. She looked up and gave Mulder a hopeful look. 

"Sorry, my talents don't include backtracking flower hijackings," Mulder told her. He scanned the room, but any trace of the intruder was long since erased by Scully's movements. The odd sense of danger he picked up earlier in the day had new meaning. That posed an interesting thought. If he was attuned to this apartment, then perhaps he had been alerted to an intrusion without realizing it. This had possibilities. 

"If this is some kind of threat, I need to report it," Scully said with a worried frown. Mulder knew how much she was going to hate being at the center of an FBI investigation. "I checked with my building manager and he didn't let anyone in while I was gone today. Mrs. Gilman, next door, doesn't remember hearing anything, but she has the TV on all day so I doubt if she's the most reliable witness." Scully sounded frustrated.

"Before we let the FBI in on the fun, ask the guys to see if they can find out anything." Mulder offered. Frohike would be delighted to be asked to assist Scully. They had mentioned how much they missed doing side-line investigations for him. Scully looked doubtful for a moment, then nodded, looking slightly relieved.

"Scully, you know what those flowers signify, don't you?" Mulder asked cautiously.

"I thought they were just very gaudy, hothouse-type flowers at first. Then, the more I looked at them, the more uncomfortable I felt. The cloying, sweet smell is sufficient to explain the headache and the subsequent unease I felt. They're just flowers, Mulder. I'm much more concerned about the fact that someone might have easily broken in here than about the flowers."

"The break-in was incidental. Whoever brought those flowers meant them as a threat. They reek of death."

"Mulder, that's ridiculous," Scully replied dismissing his argument. 

It felt like old times, but Mulder didn't have time to reminisce. Scully had to understand the danger was not just that someone could break into her house. 

"Trust your resident expert on death. Someone is threatening your life."

"Well, I can't exactly tell the FBI forensics lab that I have it on the best of authority that the flowers smell of death, now can I?" Scully retorted.

"No, but you can tell your partner."

"Mulder. . . ." Scully gave him a stern glare. 

"Scully, you of all people should know what it feels like to be on the receiving end of my protective instincts in the middle of a case. He's your partner, Scully. Don't shut him out. Remember how you felt when I shut you out, for your own good, of course," Mulder said with the air of a man delivering the fatal thrust in a fencing duel. 

"Why put Simon through all of that? It's not as if knowing the truth would put him in danger. At least I had the excuse that I thought I was protecting you. Knowing the truth won't put Simon in any more danger than he already is." Mulder argued his case carefully. Simon needed to know before the silence fractured the fragile trust he was building with Scully.

"No." Scully was looking stubborn, but Mulder sensed that she was wavering. 

"He already suspects that something is going on. If you don't tell him, he's going to start putting the pieces together. Wouldn't you rather tell him up front than have him blindside you one day with the truth? Besides, he's upset because you aren't trusting him."

"Damn it, I'll lose every bit of scientific credibility I have if I confess that I have a ghost wandering around with me," Scully shot back, sounding a bit plaintive. Mulder repressed the urge to grin. Now they were at the heart of the matter.

"That's pride speaking, not logic," he said gently. With a nod and a grimace, Scully conceded his point.

"You need him, Scully," Mulder urged as Scully just looked longingly at him. He shook his head sadly. "You need a flesh-and-blood partner. You need a partner who knows you trust him with this kind of secret."

"This is going to complicate things."

"Probably."

"Let me sleep on it. I'll think about what to tell Simon in the morning."

"Sure. Meanwhile, do you mind if I move those flowers out of sight? They bring back rather unpleasant memories." Carefully, Mulder carried the flowers to a closet and firmly shut the door on them. 

Scully looked startled. Mulder didn't elaborate. One of the things they never spoke of was the several days between his death and the afternoon after his burial when she finally acknowledged his presence. Mulder preferred not to even think about the morbid fascination of seeing the casket containing his body waiting in the funeral home.

"Now, you mentioned something about a tree?" Mulder asked cheerfully. If he wasn't careful, he'd spend the rest of the evening in a funk worrying about who was behind this threat to Scully or about his own future. Setting up a Christmas tree ought to prove to be an amusing diversion.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Getting the tree up took a lot less effort than Mulder envisioned. Scully sensibly bought a tree she could manhandle into her apartment by herself. He just made sure it didn't hang up on anything. Once inside, he held it up while she positioned it into the tree-stand. Then, all he had to do was help string lights, stand back and watch her decorate, until it was time to attach the star on the top of the tree. Scarcely tasking work, but he found that watching Scully's serious concentration on the placement of each ornament was interesting. Left to his own devices, he knew he probably would have scattered some icicles and a few gaudy ornaments in random fashion until the effect resembled the trees he'd seen in his friends' houses. Scully, on the other hand, had a master plan and stuck to it until she had transformed the tree into a glittering fairy-land of lights and glittering ornaments. 

Finally, Scully stepped back from the tree to ponder the effect.

"What do you think?" she asked seriously as he came to stand beside her.

"Hmmm, well, despite the obvious lack of alien glow-balls, it looks fine," Mulder replied just as seriously, though he had to fight to keep a straight face when she choked and looked at him with a raised eyebrow. "It's beautiful, Scully. I never realized you were hiding a talent as a tree decorator."

"Mom or Bill always got to do the tree, then Melissa took over from Mom. I had my own special ornaments I was allowed to add each year, but Bill made sure I put them in the back. They were rather ugly, but I liked them," she admitted in a low voice. Mulder grimly wondered if Bill would like a visit from a Christmas ghost. The man was seriously overdue for the Scrooge routine.

"Do you still have them?"

"Have what?" She sounded startled. Mulder suspected that her mind was a million miles away in the far past. Despite the sad smile on her face, he hoped that not all of her Christmas memories were of Bill and his imperious rules.

"Those special ornaments."

"I suppose Mom has them packed away somewhere with all the rest of our stuff." Scully sounded casual, but he thought he could detect a faint note of hope buried deep under her nonchalant attitude.

"Why don't you call your mom and ask her? This is your tree. I'll bet you'll allow yourself to put those ornaments right up front if you want." 

Scully looked at him as if she was expecting the punch line of a joke. Mulder sighed. Why shouldn't he be serious? He might not be an expert on Christmas and the assorted decorations that go along with it, but he was willing to bet that this tree would look a lot better to her with her special ornaments proudly displayed. Short of one of them being Speedo!Santa on a surfboard, he knew they'd look just fine to him. One of the few benefits of being dead, he didn't have to pretend to have taste.

"I'd feel silly," she protested, half-heartedly.

"Any sillier than standing here talking to a ghost?" he asked with a mischievous chuckle.

Scully opened her mouth to reply, then caught the humor of the situation and shook her head in defeat. "I'll call Mom in the morning. You don't fight fair," she accused him with a stern stare that dissolved into a smile.

"I don't have to. I'm a ghost. We're not bound by the Geneva Convention."

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Later, when Scully was asleep, Mulder came back out into the living room and stared at the tree while he pondered the mystery of the funeral flowers. Unless someone from their past had abruptly decided to resurface, the prankster had to be from a recent case. Cancer Man was a possibility, but he didn't think the man's ego could have resisted adding a cryptic note. Besides, Scully had been carefully avoiding taking cases with even a hint of the conspiracy about them. In spite of his frustration, Mulder understood her reasoning -- give Simon a chance to find his feet before exposing him to the dangers of messing with the conspiracy's little projects. Unfortunately, eliminating Cancer Man left a very small list of suspects to choose from.

Carefully holding onto his self-control, Mulder reluctantly flowed into the closet to take a closer look at the flowers. There was no hint of who sent them, or from what funeral home they'd been taken. In fact, there was really nothing to connect them to a funeral parlor at all, if he could ignore the aura of death that clung to them like a thin sheen of oil. The air was greasy with the stench of grief and death, but few people would have picked up on that -- certainly not Scully with her rationalism and preference for science over psychic answers, although she had become a little less rigid in that regard than she used to be. Having a ghost in your life had a tendency to make hash of the rules, but she hadn't progressed to the point of detecting auras, yet.

Why did the suspect go to some much trouble to create such an obscure threat? The break-in was too obvious. It distracted attention away from the more serious intent of this stunt. Mulder didn't like the idea that they were faced with an intelligent and subtle suspect who had a talent for breaking and entering and a knack for leaving behind no clues. He preferred his criminals to be inept, clumsy, or braggarts. 

Realizing that staring in morbid fixation at the flowers was only serving to depress him, rather than garner any useful clues, Mulder flowed back out of the closet. Restless, he drifted from place to place, always coming back every few minutes to check on Scully. He patrolled the entire block around her apartment, scaring several dogs and seriously irritating a couple of cats. The Gunmen were all tucked in their beds when he passed through. Pausing only long enough to leave a message asking them to check out any reports of vandalism from local funeral homes, he left them to their dreams. 

Eventually, he ended up in the basement of the Hoover Building, surrounded by his files. Even with Scully's rearrangement of the layout and Simon's unmistakable presence, this felt like home to him. Surrounded by the evidence of his life's work, he allowed himself to materialize and pretend, just for a few moments, that he was still alive. What was more important than indulging in fruitless nostalgia, however, were the files containing all the reports of recent cases, both solved and unsolved. If this was an unsolved case, it made no sense to threaten Scully. Why take the additional risk of being identified? This either indicated extreme overconfidence, or else the man was blind to the dangers involved. Either way, the prospects gave Mulder a headache, or what passed for one in his state. He knew it was a headache, but it more closely resembled a contraction of his ectoplasm to the point where he felt like a size eleven foot stuck into a size nine-and-a-half shoe.

Mulder made a mental note to remind Scully to ask Simon if he had received any unusual gifts. If Scully was the sole target, then that might narrow down the already slim list of suspects. Unless the unknown stalker had a serious problem with women in authority. Anything was possible, but Mulder felt certain that the answer lay in the case-files. No doubt Simon and Scully would cover all the bases; Scully was too good an investigator not to consider all the options. The flowers, by themselves, might be taken for a gesture made by an ordinary stalker. Without him present, he suspected that a lot of time would be wasted tracking down the wrong paths. A stray thought skittered across the surface of his mind, vanishing before he had more than half glimpsed it. It had something to do with the significance of the flowers, but it was gone now. These stray thoughts always seemed to occur in the early days of a profiling case. Later, when he had enough clues to begin a serious reconstruction of the puzzle, they would reappear and he would end up kicking himself for not realizing he had had the key to the whole mystery in his head early on in the game.

Recalling the exact sensation of the odd ripple he had felt earlier, Mulder committed that feeling to memory. He suspected that it marked the moment the stalker broke into Scully's apartment. He intended to give the stalker the surprise of his life if he tried that stunt again. If he was that closely attuned to Scully's apartment, he wondered if he would also be able to detect an intrusion into the X-Files office? It was worth a try. Of course, this was a much more public place than Scully's home. There were actually a number of people authorized to enter this office when Scully, or Simon weren't in. He might end up making a lot of jumps back here on false alarms, but he had the time to spare. "That's an understatement," he grumbled. 

Until the investigation got underway, there wasn't much else he could do here. He hated waiting for the stalker to make the next move, but with no clues, and only a slim lead, he didn't have much choice. Hopefully, the stalker planned on a slow escalation of fear-inducing threats. Some patterns were more or less universal, and he hoped this suspect wasn't going to break new ground. 

Scully was just beginning to wake up when he returned. She had this pattern of restlessness that marked her slow climb out of deep sleep. Watching her tangle herself in the sheets, he wondered what it would have been like to sleep next to her, and feel her rub against him as she moved around in the process of waking up. "Don't go there," he warned himself. It was no good dwelling on what-might-have-beens. That route led to madness and Scully did *not* need an insane ghost on her hands.

When she looked to be on the brink of waking up, Mulder flitted off to the kitchen and started the coffee-maker. She had fussed at him for this, but he finally convinced her that he enjoyed doing this small service. Besides, she was easier to talk to after she had her first cup of coffee. Occasionally, before the caffeine hit her system, he caught her looking at him as if . . . well, as if she had seen a ghost and was marshalling all the arguments against the existence of such phenomena. Mulder didn't want to take the chance that one day she might just argue him out of existence.

"Mulder, I'm going to write up a report for Skinner," Scully announced as she slowly sipped her second cup of coffee. "Go bother the Gunmen for awhile. I don't want you around while I skirt around the truth." Scully managed to make the request sound just a hair short of a command. Mulder felt like a dog being kicked off the comfortable couch, but he understood Scully's need to surround herself with rational reality while trying to compose a report that would satisfy Skinner without actually lying. 

"Simon?" Mulder asked, risking a cold look in return, but he wasn't going to drop the subject. Her safety was now on the line, and that meant his kid gloves were off.

"Damn it . . .," Scully started, then regained control. "When I finish the report, I'll call you and we'll *discuss* the matter of Simon, then, and only then. Understood?" she snapped.

"Getting mad at me isn't going to change the fact that you either trust Simon, or you don't. I learned to cope with the fact that you didn't always tell me everything, but Simon doesn't have the background of trust we shared," Mulder replied as gently as he could. He watched as Scully's eyes narrowed and she drew in a breath to retort, then continued. "Isn't telling him the truth a small price to pay for trust?" Mulder faded from sight before she recovered enough to respond. She might be angry, but it was time she realized exactly what the stakes were in this odd triangular partnership she shared with him and Simon.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Scully wondered why she never managed to think of a snappy comeback until after Mulder vanished. It occurred to her that perhaps he was counting on the time it took her to organize her thoughts to make his escape. Arguing with Mulder had been difficult enough when he was alive. Now that he had the power to vanish completely in the twinkling of an eye, it was next to impossible. Unless she pinned him down before the conversation even turned towards a spirited debate, and forced a promise not to vanish, she was often left with her brilliant retorts unspoken.

"Damn," she muttered, with a vague sense that she was cursing both Mulder and Fate. 

The leaden gray skies with the dreary drizzle of sleet matched her mood perfectly. Staring at her laptop, she briefly considered saying to hell with her reputation, her sanity, and probably her career, and simply tell Skinner the truth. If Mulder was so sure that telling Simon the truth was a good thing, perhaps he should get to deal with Skinner as well. The notion of seeing a ghostly Mulder trying to explain his existence to Skinner made her feel much better. She couldn't do that, either to Mulder or to herself, but revenge was sweet, even if it was only in a dream.

Feeling better, but slightly guilty over her vengeful imagination, Scully settled down to the task of composing a report that bore a reasonable facsimile of the truth without revealing too much of what actually happened at Bryson's house. Four hours later, she had a report that would endure official scrutiny without giving Skinner a heart attack. What it didn't say was a testament to her years of experience in submitting her "little reports" to Blevins. Those reports had gradually mutated from strict scientific evaluations of Mulder's investigations to cleverly crafted expositions that justified them without crossing the line of scientific responsibility. 

Mulder had obligingly stayed away while she wrestled with words and her conscience. Despite her frequent irritation with him, she knew he meant well. What was worse, she also knew he was frequently right, especially in his judgments of other people. Well, there was a reason she went into forensics, other than the challenge of the specialty, she thought with a rueful sigh. Every instinct she had warned her against revealing Mulder's presence to Simon, but a tiny part of her wondered if Mulder was right -- that this was pride, not logic, speaking. Maybe she just didn't want to share what, to her, was a miracle. Mulder had come back to *her.* Even now, five months after he returned, she would sometimes wake in the middle of the night, frantically searching for him, desperately afraid that his return had been a cruel dream. Then the sight of his pale luminescent figure perched cross-legged on the end of her bed would reassure her and she'd fall back asleep. There were times she was still awed by the fact that even death couldn't keep them apart.

"OK, Mulder. It's done, though I suspect Skinner is going to notice some gaping holes in the narrative," she announced to the empty room. There was no trace of Mulder's presence, but she was fairly certain he wasn't too far away. The break-in yesterday had scared him. She had this vision of him standing guard over her apartment, waiting to pounce on the stalker. Now wouldn't that be a report to make to Skinner - an invisible man beat up an intruder. No, she really needed to persuade Mulder to restrain his urge to beat the living hell out of the stalker. Her powers of literary persuasion weren't that good.

Scully was relieved to hear the off-key minor whistle that Mulder used to announce his imminent arrival. His appearance by the couch a moment later soothed an ache she had barely been aware of feeling. Startled by how relaxed his presence made her feel, she unleashed a brilliant smile in his direction. To her amusement, Mulder's form quivered violently for a moment, and he blushed; well, his semi-opaque form turned a peculiar smoky-gray, but she was fairly certain that this was his way of blushing. Maybe this was more fun than turning him over to Skinner. Revenge is sweet, no matter how you obtain it, she thought. Seeing Mulder try to rally from his bemused reaction gave her a chance to realize how comfortable she felt with him now. If other people knew about him, would she be forced to share?

"That's a very odd reaction to writing an official report, but I like it," Mulder replied when he managed to steady himself and find his voice. He gave her a grin in return, and she had to fight to keep her knees locked. Damn the man for ratcheting up the temperature in here. If it got any hotter she might spontaneously combust. Now that she considered it, that might not have been a bad way to die. Back when Mulder was alive they should have said to hell with all the doubts and simply gone up in flames together. Now he was a ghost, but from the look in his eyes sometimes, she wondered if he still felt the flames.

"I've done the best I can. I'm hoping that Skinner is so used to strange reports coming out of the X-Files that he'll simply accept whatever I write, and not look for trouble," Scully confessed wearily.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Mulder quickly scanned the report, and nodded approvingly. Scully was better at avoiding minefields in her reports than he'd ever been. Of course, he'd usually been more interested in exploding a few mines, so his reports tended to be blatant recitals of unpleasant truths. It was a wonder Skinner didn't have chronic migraines after four years of reading conflicting reports of the same investigation.

"I think Skinner will simply accept your report as written, and give thanks that he isn't knee-deep in a post-mortem review of the deaths of four of his agents," Mulder pointed out. Scully nodded. Mulder knew that one of the reasons the X-Files had survived as long as it had was because Skinner was adept at letting sleeping dogs lie. 

"About Simon," Scully began, catching Mulder off-guard for a moment as the conversation veered about 180 degrees to the left. "Leaving aside the issue of trust, why are you so convinced that we need to tell him about you?" There was a hint of steel in Scully's voice. Mulder winced as he realized she wanted the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. She could pick the damnedest moments to turn investigator.

He abandoned the temptation to give her a smart-ass comment about trust in favor of giving her question serious consideration. His motives were not entirely altruistic, he ruefully admitted to himself. While his primary concern was for Scully, there were also some very selfish motives clinging to the underbelly of his argument. He had rather foolishly hoped that Scully would simply accept his concern as motive enough. Trust her to realize he wasn't telling her everything.

With a resigned shrug he decided to 'fess up. "Trust is about 85% of the issue, but, yes, there are some more personal reasons." Mulder paused for a moment, trying to come up with a way to phrase his motives without sounding like a fool. Scully waited patiently. She sat down in her favorite chair and settled in, obviously prepared to wait until Hell froze over, or he decided to cough up the truth.

"I'm tired of playing dodge-ball with Simon. Either I have to avoid the office altogether or else I end up phasing in and out like some damn short-circuited light bulb. He's too sensitive to my presence; even the 'I'm barely here at all' shadow gets a rise out of him. I think he'd understand, and I suspect he'd be relieved that the twitchy feeling he's been experiencing has a nice, sane, logical explanation." Mulder tried to keep the exasperation out of his voice, but he doubted that he had succeeded. For the past six weeks the problem with Simon had grown worse. Mulder felt like a mouse trying to avoid a very persistent cat. Sooner or later, Simon was going to zig when Mulder was zagging, and they were going to collide. 

"You don't have to stay in the office . . .," Scully started, then stopped abruptly as Mulder simply froze in place. He felt her looking at him in consternation, but the words were out, and hovering between them, and could not be unsaid. Perhaps it was better this way, taken unawares, than to have her carefully prepare a nice speech that only translated into 'go find someplace else to hang out.'

"No, I suppose I don't," Mulder replied bluntly, but without rancor. He was exerting rigid control over his ectoplasm, and his temper was in a deep freeze. All of his fears of the past few months were rushing towards this moment. What he could never ask her was now out in the open in a casual comment he knew she hadn't meant to make.

"Mulder, I didn't mean. . . ," she tried to smooth over the lapse, but fell silent as Mulder raised a hand.

"Scully, I told you back when all of this started, that all you had to do was tell me to go away, and I would. If I've been hovering, you should have let me know." Mulder kept his voice calm and controlled, and his eyes hooded against her attempts to read him. Not this time, he promised himself. 

"Why do you always assume the worst? I didn't tell you because I didn't want you to go," Scully snapped out the words. Mulder felt the heat of her rising temper. This was not good. His own temper was straining at the restraints he was imposing. If she lost her temper, his was sure to follow.

"Then maybe this is another good reason to tell Simon about me. I feel your uneasiness every time I come into the X-Files office. It's as if you suddenly had to worry about a precocious but delinquent child making a mess. Add this to Simon's suspicion that something is not normal among the X-Files, and the atmosphere in the office has been bloody uncomfortable," Mulder admitted with a bit more asperity than he intended.

"Why didn't you say something?" Scully asked in a level tone which did not completely mask her irritation.

"Why didn't you?" Mulder shot back. Scully glared at him before she stopped, and looked pensive. He let her think through whatever thought had occurred to her. It gave him time to get his temper back under control. This time he was not going to let his temper control which way this argument turned out.

Standing up, she walked over to him and reached out to touch him. He hastily solidified so that her hand wouldn't pass right through him. The warmth of her hand felt like a burning brand, and some of the ice seizing his soul thawed. He quivered slightly, his form rippling as the memory of every touch they had ever shared came back to haunt him.

"We know each other so well, and still we manage not to communicate. It's an X-File, Mulder," she said with a sad smile that melted the fear that fed his anger. He touched her face gently, then laid his forehead against hers for an instant. Strange, no matter how fucked up their communication skills were, somehow a single touch spoke volumes. 

"Just because I'm a ghost, Scully, doesn't mean I'm not afraid. I don't want you to need me out of pity, so I end up being afraid that you're merely tolerating me," Mulder confessed. He was learning the hard lesson that once cornered, it was better to force the issues out into the open rather than camouflaging them, as he used to do when he was alive. 

"Feeling like the proverbial third wheel?" Scully asked softly. Mulder nodded and felt her hand take his. "I don't want you out of pity, Mulder. You're a miracle that I still can't believe happened. Maybe I'm afraid that this is a dream, and if I tell someone about the dream, it'll vanish."

"Don't tell a dream before breakfast, or it won't come true? My grandmother used to tell me that," Mulder reflected. Wonder what she would think of me now? he thought. She'd probably be delighted to have a genuine ghost in the family, he concluded as he recalled his grandmother's disappointment that the Mulder family couldn't muster up even a single ghost in its lineage. "Well, just make sure you eat a hearty breakfast on Monday, and we'll be safe," Mulder suggested with a sly smile. Just to heighten the effect, he visualized himself wearing his wire-rim glasses. Scully's laughter was welcome recompense for the effort.

"You are the most stubborn. . . OK, I give up. I'll tell him first thing Monday morning. Happy?" she added with a resigned grumble.

"Delirious," Mulder shot back. "I don't mean to push you into doing something you don't want to do, but he really does need to know. Besides, it might make him feel better to know that I don't hold a grudge about what happened. He broods about it when you're not around." 

Scully looked surprised. Mulder suspected she hadn't known about Simon's fits of guilt. Simon had been very good about having them when Scully was off in some meeting or out to lunch. Watching Simon wrestle with his guilt brought back unpleasant memories of his own guilt trips. Mulder wanted to reassure him, but his promise to Scully always held him back.

"Now, weren't you going to call your mom about a certain set of Christmas ornaments?" Mulder prompted. No doubt they would have another round of indecision on Monday morning, but right now he wanted to get them back to normal things. It was time to forget Simon and the unknown stalker and get Scully back in the Christmas spirit.

Scully opened her mouth to protest, then shut it at a stern look from Mulder. For just a brief moment, Mulder indulged in the rare feeling of being a bossy in a good cause. 

"Phone. Now. I'll just take a quick tour around the area to make sure nobody's lurking with evil intentions so you'll have some privacy," Mulder offered gallantly.

"It's sleeting outside," Scully protested, then burst out laughing at the startled look on Mulder's face. "Go on. Can I help it if I keep forgetting you're a ghost?" she asked plaintively. Mulder wondered how she'd react if he told her that if he materialized just enough, the sleet tickled as it passed through him. 

Mulder waved at her as he slowly disappeared. Her need anchored him. He was still afraid, but now his fear was centered on the threat to her rather than a growing uneasiness that she was finding him too intrusive in her life. He felt exhausted by the emotional upheaval, but both of them were beginning to learn that keeping quiet was only going to make things worse. Now, if they had only figured this out when he was alive, who knew what extreme possibilities they might have explored. He pondered the possibilities as he left a trail of howling dogs and snarling cats in his wake. 

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Sunday, December 13

Scully's phone call to her mother led, inevitably, to an all-day Sunday visit. Mulder rode down with her most of the way. They passed the time batting around theories on the purpose, and origin, of the flowers. Scully remained unconvinced that they were a death threat. Her theory, as near as Mulder could make out, was that the stalker simply grabbed funeral displays as a convenience, rather than as a deliberate threat. Since there was nothing to identify them as funeral wreaths, why go to all that trouble to make a threat she wouldn't understand?

In the face of logic and reason, Mulder had nothing to fall back on but his unshakable certainty that the flowers were chosen deliberately for the purpose of making a threat. It was almost like old times. Even Scully smiled as the similarity struck her. She fell silent and stared pensively at the road ahead of them. 

"Hey, I'm still here," Mulder reminded her softly. "It's early yet. Right now, either one of our arguments could be valid. With luck, the suspect will make the mistake of believing your apartment is empty when you aren't there."

Scully looked alarmed. Mulder continued before she could interrupt with a warning. "I'll behave. He may trip and knock himself unconscious, but I won't lay a hand on him otherwise," Mulder promised with a sly smile. Scully merely shook her head and sighed. 

Changing the subject, Mulder began to bring up old cases, trying to create a list of viable suspects. Unfortunately for them, the list was very small. It was rather amazing how few suspects who might hold a grudge were still around. If they eliminated the conspiracy altogether, then they had maybe a handful of possibilities. Donnie Pfaster was the most glaring possibility, but as far as they knew, he was still in prison.

When Scully turned onto the street where her mother lived, Mulder slowly faded from sight. "Remember, if you need me, call," his disembodied voice said from the empty seat next to her. 

From the stubborn set to her expression, Mulder was fairly certain it would take a near catastrophe for Scully to call for help. While he admired her courage and her ability to take care of herself, he worried. Well, that was his problem, not hers. Dematerializing completely, he allowed the car to continue without him. He watched from the street as Scully went into her mother's house. She should be safe there. It was too early in the game for the stalker to escalate into a direct attack, he hoped.

A thought, and a moment later, Mulder materialized in the Gunmen's office, and peered over Frohike's shoulder at the hacking job he was engaged in.

"Shit!" Frohike yelped as he felt the wave of cold air on his back. "Give a guy some warning."

"Sorry. What do you want? A whistle? I could knock three times, or there's always the traditional ghostly moan. I don't happen to have any chains to rattle, but I suppose I could hunt some up," Mulder offered with a straight face.

"I don't care if you give us a fanfare of trumpets. Just give some warning next time. I nearly deleted some important codes," Frohike groused.

Mulder considered the possibilities in Frohike's carte blanche, and smiled. Frohike gave him a suspicious look, but didn't retract his comment.

"Where are Byers and Langly?" Mulder couldn't sense anyone else in the area.

"Out canvassing funeral homes, like you asked," Frohike muttered as he returned his attention to putting the final touches on the hack commands.

"Find anything?" Mulder asked hopefully. 

"Nope. Are you sure the flowers were from a funeral home?"

"Either a funeral home or a graveside. Trust me, those flowers were in close proximity to a corpse for several hours." Mulder was emphatic on this point. No matter how reasonable Scully's objections were, he knew what death smelled like.

"Well, I guess you'd know," Frohike conceded as he hit the Send key with a flourish. "Where's Agent Scully?" he said as he spun around in his chair to face his old friend.

"With her mother. I wanted to check in with you before I go over to the office and check out some back files. It's Sunday. I'll have the place to myself. It'll be like old times." Mulder tried to keep the wistful tone out of his voice. He had lost count of the hours he spent in the X-Files office on Sundays when he was alive. If Frohike noticed, he gave no indication.

A loud beep sounded from the computer. Frohike spun around and began rapidly punching keys, muttering a constant stream of profanities as his hacking program began backfiring. Mulder decided that he was only distracting his friend and left him to his complex game of cat and mouse with whatever system he was trying to hack.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Hovering in the hazy border between his world and the world of the living, Mulder made a quick check to make sure no one was in the basement office before he materialized in a far corner. His paranoia was standing him in good stead as a ghost. Stabilizing as a semi-opaque shadow, the traditional misty apparition, he flowed over to the cabinets. Keeping one part of his mind on Scully's apartment, he began to browse through the files, looking for clues to the identity of the stalker. Focusing on this old, familiar task, Mulder could almost forget that he was dead. 

The sound of a key turning in the lock gave him scant warning of a visitor. Shoving the folder he was reading haphazardly into the file drawer, he faded into a thin misty shadow as he slid the drawer shut. Turning to see who the intruder was, expecting one of the janitorial staff, he was surprised to see Simon walk through the door. Alarmed, Mulder retreated into a far corner, and became one with the shadows. Why did Simon have to pick this afternoon to invade his investigations, Mulder grumbled to himself. It wasn't fair. Simon had free rein all during the week. Why did he have to hog the office on the weekend, as well? Feeling aggrieved, Mulder hugged the shadows.

With a heavy sigh, Simon collapsed into his chair and leaned back. His entire body betrayed his weariness. For nearly an hour, he simply sat at his desk and stared into space. Every so often he'd glance over at Scully's desk with a wistful look before he went back to staring at nothing.

Just watching him made Mulder uneasy. It didn't take a psychology degree to figure out that Simon was brooding over Scully's refusal to take him into her confidence. Mulder wanted to tell Simon that it wasn't him, but if their partnership was going to work, then Scully had to be the one to take the initiative. That didn't mean he didn't sympathize with Simon. 

"Damn," Simon breathed the curse as if it was a tired refrain used too often to hold any meaning. Mulder had gotten so used to the silence that he was almost startled into flight. The atmosphere in the office was getting oppressive. Every instinct Mulder had urged him to reach out and comfort Simon. He was tormenting himself over a tragedy in which he was as much a victim as Mulder had been. The only difference was that Simon was still caught in the chains of guilt. 

Then, to Mulder's dismay, Simon got up and started to pace. In desperation, Mulder flowed up to the high windows and perched there, out of the way of Simon's restlessness. Even there, Mulder could tell that Simon sensed something awry. He would get this odd, almost unfocused look on his face, as if he was trying to hear an odor. It was unnerving because Mulder sensed that Simon was very close to identifying what the elusive sensation was. 

Mulder decided that in this case, the better part of discretion was abrupt flight. He had known that Simon had a reputation as a believer, but if he had had any suspicion that he was a sensitive, he never would have pushed Scully to take him as a partner. Given the events at Bryson's house, Mulder knew that Simon was within a hair's breadth of putting all the pieces together. Scully might find herself on the receiving end of some very tricky questions Monday morning if she didn't beat Simon to the punch. 

Sparing a last longing look at the files, Mulder faded away completely into the ether, and allowed himself to just drift aimlessly while he waited for Scully to call him. He kept one ear... well, he supposed it wasn't exactly an ear, but whatever sense he used to detect disturbances in his world, cocked for any intrusion into Scully's apartment. Other than that, he simply hovered in a null state in the thick gray fog he called home, as close to sleep as he ever came in this altered state of existence.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Simon stared at the wall, wondering what brought him back to the office on a Sunday. It had been a perfect day for staying inside, reading, or even simply channel surfing, but the walls in his apartment began closing in until he fled. Now he found himself in an even smaller space, but some of the aching sense of grief and regret had eased.

"Agent Mulder, I wish I could go back and change what happened. I'd even take your place, but I know that's pride speaking. You belong here, in this chair, not me. Your partner's been kind, but I think she sees you every time she looks over here, and tries not to resent me for sitting here instead," Simon whispered to the memories of his dead predecessor that clung to this office like stubborn cobwebs. He didn't make an effort to banish them. There were few places in the Hoover Building where Agent Mulder's memory was as honored as down in this forgotten hole-in-the-wall basement office. 

The sense of being shut out was becoming more than he could take. The residual effects of numbing terror at being caught in Bryson's maze of deadly traps had broken his resolve not to confront Scully about the situation. Fear had not set off his sixth sense. Fear had not caused him to see a thick misty shadow form around Scully. Fear had not brought with it a wave of cold that made his bones ache. There was no way she could have known the secret of that maze. He'd heard the ATF agents talking and they were amazed that anyone came out alive. There was no discernible pattern, and for all of her talk about keying in to Bryson's fascination with Celtic magic, he didn't think that even crossed her mind at the time. All during the hellish ten minutes it had taken them to get through the traps, she had a focused expression on her face, as if she were listening to instructions only she could hear.

Simon didn't want to seem ungrateful, but he didn't think he could keep on functioning as a blind partner. Something was going on, and he needed to know what. Scully owed him nothing, but he needed to feel she trusted him. Forgiveness was not even part of this equation. That might come, one day, but he could accept that that day was far in the future. He knew he had much to offer Scully, even if it was only second-best to what she once had. There were even times when he thought he caught a faint nod of approval as he demonstrated his particular talent for reassembling scattered clues at a crime scene into something resembling a coherent pattern. Profiling the criminal mind was completely beyond him, but he had a clear recognition of his own talents and believed that they had been useful in solving many of the cases they had taken in the past five months. What he wanted, what he needed, was acceptance as an equal partner in her quest.

Staring into nothingness was not helping his mood, Simon finally conceded. Going back to his apartment wasn't appealing either. The light tapping of sleet on the windows gave the office a comfortable, almost snug feeling. This was where he belonged. Even if he was only an usurper, not the rightful heir to Agent Mulder's work, he had found the place where he could relax and let his oddly bent mind work without constantly worrying about how his fellow agents would react to his beliefs. Granma had warned him that people without the extra sense he was blessed/cursed with would always be suspicious of him. Agent Scully might insist that she didn't believe in the paranormal, but she didn't dismiss his theories out of hand. Occasionally he caught her smiling sadly as he argued in favor of a looser interpretation of science. 

With a final sigh for his inability to come to grips with the problem of trust, Simon settled down to the task of writing his report on the events in the Bryson case. Normally he deferred the task of writing the official report to Scully, as the senior agent, but A.D. Skinner had made it crystal clear that he wanted a report from both of them, without collaboration. Simon wondered if Skinner was up to hearing the unvarnished truth, then decided that even if Skinner was up to it, his own career was not. Even as inured as Skinner must be to fantastic tales, Simon had no desire to open himself up to an official inquiry. Seeing ghostly shapes, and hearing voices out of thin air, were tickets to stress counseling, if not early retirement. Agent Mulder had a solid reputation as a crack profiler to give his excursions into the paranormal weight and substance. Simon knew he had no such grace. 

It was nearly dark by the time Simon punched the save button, and leaned back in his chair to stretch. His brain ached from the stress of choosing each word with care to protect his own reputation, and to avoid putting his partner on the spot. He had no idea what her report would say, but he really doubted if she would appreciate being forced to explain voices and apparitions. His high school English teacher would be proud of this report. The man had been a master at manipulating words, and Simon had marveled at his ability to subtly alter the meaning of an argument by the substitution of just a few key words at critical points. Hopefully Skinner would appreciate the effort and be content to let sleeping dogs lie. 

As he headed upstairs to the exit, Simon pondered the mystery surrounding Scully's sudden ability to detect traps so cleverly hidden that the pattern baffled the ATF boys. The answer was there, in front of him, he just had to assemble the clues in the right order. This puzzle called for a large Pilsner, and some of Mozart's later symphonies, when he got home. The problem, as he saw it, was not that he lacked clues, but that the clues he had made no sense. Oh well, it was a more productive way to spend a rainy Sunday evening than channel surfing. A good mystery was perfect on days like this, he thought as he maneuvered his way through the light evening traffic. 

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Mulder didn't know how much time had elapsed before he felt Scully's call. After leaving Simon to his brooding, he had paid a quick unobtrusive visit to Frohike, then quietly retreated to the gray fog which seemed to be his natural habitat in this world between life and afterlife. Here he didn't dream, or even take note of time, but simply floated without sight, or sound, to distract him. Some souls might find this sensory deprivation relaxing, but Mulder found it boring. His mind needed fresh input to keep it from churning aimlessly like a hamster in a wheel. Still, there was a hypnotic quality to this null state that lulled him into what he thought was a type of ethereal hibernation. Perhaps this was all there was to the afterlife, and heaven was only a dream created by very bored minds, he mused as he floated effortlessly in his gray cottony cocoon.

Scully's call never failed to rouse him. It felt like an intravenous shot of pure caffeine jolting him awake. It was nightfall when he passed into Scully's apartment. Pausing for a moment on the border of her living world, he noticed three new ornaments on the tree. They stood out against the commercially perfect balls and bells. They were neither perfect, nor color-coordinated, but were gaudy, somewhat awkward reflections of the pugnacious spirit Scully kept hidden inside.

Giving his customary warning whistle, Mulder materialized beside the tree. Scully was staring at the ornaments with a doubtful look.

"They look good," he announced as he walked over to her. 

"They're not like I remembered them," she said wistfully. 

"Childhood memories never are, but a Christmas tree needs a few awkward memories," Mulder assured her. "I'm no expert, but I think the tree looks more homey this way."

"You're a sentimentalist, Mulder," Scully accused as she tried not to smile.

"OK, you caught me," Mulder admitted, laughingly raising his hands. "Don't tell on me. I'm sure there's some sort of rule against it."

"I can't believe Mom saved them all these years. She was delighted that I wanted them." Scully sounded perplexed. 

"Moms are born packrats, even my mother saved things she would have been better off burning." Mulder took Scully's hands in his, giving her a moment to adjust to the cold of his touch, and led her over to the couch. "It's Christmas, Scully. It's OK to be sentimental, and indulge in an orgy of memories."

"I wish you... " Scully stopped and looked up at him with an expression that threatened to dissolve him. Not now, he repeated over and over to himself. Not now. I'm in control. 

"Scully... " he began, but she hushed him. 

"Just my turn to be sentimental, I guess," she conceded, but didn't finish the sentence she had broken off. Mulder was relieved. "I'm going to make some tea and bring out some of my mom's cookies. As long as I'm in a sentimental mood, I might as well go all out. Up for watching 'A Christmas Carol' with me?"

"If it's the Alister Sim version, then you're on," Mulder agreed with some enthusiasm. Maybe there was a way to pipe old movies into that gray fogbank he lived in. Now that might make eternity a bit more entertaining than just floating around meditating.

"There's another version?" Scully called back incredulously. Mulder silently ticked off one point for her in their endless game of one-upmanship. It promised to be one of their quiet evenings, the kind they never indulged in when alive. He promised himself to refrain from even mentioning Simon. Scully knew what she had to do. Pushing her only made her mulish, and he had no desire to mar the peace between them with another argument. The morning would be soon enough to remind her of her promise if she showed signs of reneging. 

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Monday morning, December 14th   
X-Files Office

 

Scully dropped her briefcase on the chair with a thump. In the back of her mind she sensed Mulder moving about the room. Thankfully, Simon was running a few minutes late. She wanted the time to marshal her thoughts for the ensuing discussion. Mulder had been pointedly silent on the issue of her promise to fill Simon in on the ghostly doings in the X-Files office. Drat the man... er, ghost, she corrected herself. He could say more with silence than most men could with a filibuster. His silence filled the office. 

"Fine, Mulder. As soon as he gets in, and gets some coffee into his system, I'll tell him," she snapped, more sharply than she intended. It wasn't entirely Mulder's fault that she was facing a very complicated discussion on a topic which still, quite frankly, unnerved her. She did not believe in ghosts. She simply believed in one ghost. There was a difference, but the only time she had tried to explain this to Mulder, he had dissolved into laughter. Maybe she *was* splitting hairs, but there was no scientific evidence of other ghosts. As far as she was concerned, Mulder was an anomaly.

Simon came in just as she finished printing out her report. Mulder ceased his restless pacing. The light brush of his hand along her arm told her that he was retreating to *his* corner, out of the way. 

"I'm here if you need proof," Mulder whispered as he passed. 

Scully nodded, mentally girding herself for the upcoming conversation. She decided she'd allow Simon to get his coffee before springing a ghost story on him. When she heard the door open, she looked up with what she hoped was a confident, welcoming smile.

"Simon, what's wrong?" Concern replaced the confident demeanor she had adopted. Simon looked stunned. He was shaking his head as if in perpetual denial of some harsh truth. Scully shot a quick glance over to Mulder's corner, then breathed a sigh of relief. Mulder hadn't inadvertently materialized.

"Agent Thomas... " Simon paused, and took a deep breath as he stared blankly at her. He tried again. "Agent Webster, his partner, just told me that Frank died yesterday. We were at the Academy together. His wife is pregnant with their first child, a boy." Simon rambled on, tossing out disjointed facts in the dead tone of someone too shocked to realize he was speaking aloud.

Scully tried to remember who Agent Thomas was. The name sounded familiar, but she was drawing a blank with a face.

"Young agent from Violent Crimes -- sandy brown hair, medium height -- he was on the raid Friday. Kept whistling that damn tune all the while we were waiting to go inside." Mulder described the agent who had seemed so nervous and jittery until the moment they stepped into Bryson's house. The transformation into a calm, steady-as-a-rock agent had intrigued him. What was more important, Agent Thomas had instantly obeyed Scully's commands and made sure the men behind him kept in step. A promising young agent, if Mulder was any judge.

Scully recalled a smiling man who looked embarrassed when she asked him what he was whistling. Thomas' explanation that he was whistling "Men of Harlech" meant nothing to her, but Simon had chuckled, and some of the tension had broken among the assembled team. She remembered looking back and seeing absolute trust in his eyes when she announced that they were in a maze of traps, but she could lead them through it. Nothing more came to her. Agent Thomas was a name and a face, among a dozen other agents. However, his death had obviously shaken Simon.

"He slipped on the ice on his front steps and hit his head. Death was instantaneous. What a stupid, senseless way to die," Simon growled, emotion finally coloring his voice. His eyes began to refocus as he looked around. He appeared surprised to find himself in his own office.

"I'm sorry. I ... I can't believe it. I just spoke to him on Saturday," Simon offered as if somehow this could make the news go away.

"Simon, get some coffee and sit down. Take your time. We don't have anything pressing." Scully paused. Well, there was one thing, but she was prepared to run interference if she had to. "I assume you have your report ready?" she asked confidently. 

Simon nodded as he put his briefcase down on his desk. He fumbled for a mug and managed to pour the coffee into the mug, not on the table. His color was beginning to come back, but he was still in shock. 

"Give it to me. I'll take them both up to A.D. Skinner's office," Scully offered in a tone just shy of a direct order. 

She wanted an excuse to leave the office. For one thing it would give Simon a chance to compose himself in private. For another, it would give her a chance to talk to Mulder. Mulder never mentioned knowing Agent Thomas, but there was an ominous quality to his silence. In the past, when he was alive, she had learned the subtle language of his eyes and face; the barometers of his mood. Now, she was becoming adept at reading his silences, but it wasn't the same. So many nuances were lost.

Simon fumbled the report out of his briefcase and numbly handed it over to her. She let her fingers rest on his hand for just a moment, offering her silent sympathy. She understood how he felt, but he didn't need commiseration right now. He was coming to grips with losing a friend in a senseless accident. As much as anyone could be, she had been prepared for the possibility that Mulder would die in the line of duty, even that he might be murdered by his enemies, but losing him in an accident had shattered her. She couldn't tell Simon that she understood what he was feeling; he didn't need reminding of his part in Mulder's death.

"We were going to the hockey game tomorrow night," Simon told her forlornly. Scully nodded and quietly left him to come to terms with his loss.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

"This doesn't feel right," Mulder said almost before the elevator doors closed behind them. He materialized to a faint opaque mist. He had felt Simon's distress as soon as he entered the office. Grief carried its own miasma. Still, he sensed that underneath the guilt, Simon was bothered by a nagging reluctance to accept the easy answer. 

"What?" Scully sounded puzzled. 

"I don't like convenient accidents," Mulder replied grimly. His suspicions were vague and unformed, but he *knew* something was wrong. Coincidences shouldn't feel so contrived, so jarring. "What are the odds that you receive a death threat, and the next day another agent on your team dies in a freak accident?"

"Accidents happen," Scully reminded him sadly. Her expression told him that she remembered her grief. Smiling sadly, Mulder caressed her face before fading out completely as the elevator reached Skinner's floor.

"I know. But this feels different." Mulder shrugged before he realized that Scully couldn't see him. He followed her down the hall, trying to figure out what was setting off his personal alarm bells. All he could come up with was that something just didn't feel right. Alive, he might have been able to open an X-File, but then alive, he probably wouldn't have had this eerie sense when a death wasn't what it appeared to be. Scully was going to have to do it for him, but first they had a little matter of a certain conversation. Mulder did not intend to let Scully off the hook. If someone was targeting the team, he did not want to have to keep worrying about Simon stumbling into him. It was time they maximized their resources and operated as a team. 

While Kimberly called in to announce Scully, Mulder took a quick glance in Skinner's office via the far wall. The air quality had improved dramatically in there since his death. At least for the moment, Cancer Man was leaving Skinner alone. Mulder watched as Skinner finished reading the paper in front of him, then pulled off his glasses and massaged his eyes. He looked tired. Mulder realized that he was seeing Skinner in a rare unguarded moment of personal grief. It had never occurred to him that Skinner might have sat in this same chair reading the report of his accidental death, feeling the same grief. Abruptly Mulder retreated. Just because he was a ghost, it did not give him the right to intrude on Skinner like some damn voyeur. A tiny voice suggested that perhaps he wasn't willing to learn just how much Skinner cared for all the agents under his command, including one very unorthodox pain-in-the-butt senior agent in the basement. He preferred the image of Skinner as a brusque authority figure who enjoyed chewing him out. This silent grieving Skinner awakened his slumbering anger at losing everything.

Mulder saw the cool professional mask Skinner wore slip effortlessly back in place as Scully came into the office. Pausing only a moment to reassure Scully that he would be nearby if she needed him, he retreated out of the office. Skinner was entirely too perceptive at times and Mulder did not intend on creating a problem that might deflect Scully from her promise to tell Simon everything.

He was waiting by the elevator when Scully came down the hall. Her expression was one of tightly controlled anger. She was radiating confusion and resentment. Mulder wondered what in hell Skinner had said to her. A touch of his hand let her know he was nearby, but he did not materialize, even in the privacy of the elevator. The security cameras really didn't need to catch Scully talking to herself. Perhaps, after she explained things to Simon, he could talk with him about what Skinner had said to upset her so much. 

"I don't think telling Simon would be a good thing, right now." Scully said in a decisive tone. So much for thinking instead of talking.

"Scully... " Mulder didn't argue. He let his exasperated tone do the arguing for him. 

"Don't you think it's a bit inappropriate to tell Simon about ghosts when his friend just died?"

"Not really. I really doubt if Agent Thomas made it to ghost status, but I'll check it out, if you'd like. Dying unexpectedly, or violently, is a traditional route to ghosthood, but somehow I can't see him going anywhere but where he belongs," Mulder commented wistfully. He knew he'd fight tooth and nail to stay with Scully, but he supposed there was part of every soul that longed for the entire afterlife, not just some gray fogbank. "However, I do think his death was more than just an accident, so that might be a factor," Mulder added thoughtfully.

"Why are you persisting in making Agent Thomas' death something more than it is?" Scully sounded testy -- nothing new in their endless give and take about what constituted an X-File, but he felt an underlying sense of anger that surprised him. He couldn't help worrying at mysteries, it was his nature. Normally she would at least hear him out, giving him some credit for his intuition.

"Because it doesn't feel right," Mulder offered tentatively. He wasn't sure himself except that the death felt wrong. Hardly something Scully could take to a judge, but he hoped she'd take his word on it. After all, he was the resident expert on ghosts.

"And I'm supposed to open an X-File on a feeling?" Scully asked in an clipped, strained tone. Mulder began to have the first flickers of apprehension, but hoped the resolution they had reached the night before would hold. She needed to talk to Simon. She had to know this.

"Who better than a ghost to sniff out the paranormal?" Mulder replied carefully.

"Agent Thomas died in a simple accident, nothing more. I see no purpose in adding to the grief of his family and friends by pretending there is something unnatural about his death."

Now Mulder knew he was in trouble. Scully was retreating behind the walls of her science. This whole argument felt wrong. Usually Scully was willing to at least hear him out. Now she seemed determined to shut him out. She was in one of her stubborn moods and nothing short of C4 would budge her.

"Fine. I don't suppose you'd mind if I just do a bit of checking on my own since I'm obviously not needed in the office right now," Mulder asked sarcastically, drawing himself up as if waiting for orders. He was holding on tight to his temper, but it was slipping dangerously. 

"Why don't you do that," Scully replied coolly. To Mulder's dismay, this conversation was a total loss. He had hoped that giving Scully a gentle nudge would help her get over her reluctance to 'fess up about the ghost in her life. Apparently what he had ended up doing was making her feel cornered. Now it appeared that she was seizing on the first opportunity to renege on her promise. Was she this ashamed of admitting his continued presence in her life?

"You really aren't going to tell Simon about me, are you?" Mulder asked bitterly, even though he could read the answer in the stubborn set of Scully's eyes.

"No. This is my call. And don't even think about 'accidentally' materializing. There's no reason for Simon to know about you and I intend to keep it that way," Scully said with finality as she strode out of the elevator.

"Just can't stand the idea that somebody might think you believe in something your science can't prove, eh, Scully?" Mulder angrily snapped at her receding back. She stiffened for a moment, then continued down the hallway to the door to *her* office. Mulder decided that he couldn't follow her meekly and watch the charade of lies continue. He allowed the elevator doors to close and indulged in a rare fit of pure temper before vanishing. When the elevator started upwards, he was long gone, leaving the stench of ozone behind to puzzle the agents boarding on the floor above.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Damn the man . . . ghost, whatever, Scully muttered to herself as she marched into the room, past a startled Simon. What right had he to dictate to her how she ran her partnership with Simon?

"Scully?" Simon began cautiously.

"What?" Scully snapped back, forgetting for the moment that it was Simon she was barking at, not Mulder. 

"Nothing, just wondered if you always come back from A. D. Skinner's ready to bite my head off," Simon asked evenly. 

Startled, Scully silently cursed her own lack of control and took a deep calming breath. "I'm sorry. I . . . I stayed up late writing my report." Not exactly a lie, but she felt as if the half-truth was branded on her forehead. Simon would never know what it cost her to admit to even this much weakness, but it was better than trying to explain that she had just had an argument with the ghost of the man she still thought of as her partner.

"Oh. Can I read it?" Simon's request sounded casual, but to Scully's hypersensitive ears it sounded as if he wanted to compare his version of the events with hers. She bristled slightly. Mulder was bad enough with his constant questioning of her logical, rational conclusions, now Simon was starting in. The corner she was in was beginning to feel damn uncomfortable.

"Of course," she replied stiffly, ignoring Simon's look of dismay. With the punch of a few keys, she transferred the report to Simon's inbox. "I think you'll find that it answers all the of relevant questions."

"Yeah, I mean I'm sure it does. I didn't mean . . . " Simon paused and took a deep breath. "I've already requested sick leave for the rest of the day. I'll download the file and read it at home. I'm sorry, but Frank . . . I can't just sit here pretending to work." Simon pulled a floppy disk from his computer and threw it into his briefcase. "See you tomorrow," he said as he shrugged into his coat and was halfway out the door before Scully registered what he was saying.

"Simon, wait. . . ." Scully tried to call after him, but either he didn't hear her, or chose not to respond. For the second time in one day she'd been ditched and she wasn't any happier about it the second time.

"Fine, I'll stay here and work," she announced to the empty air, which remained stubbornly empty of any sign of Mulder. As aggravated as she was with him, she missed the faint chill in the air that told her he was hovering nearby.

This was not how the day was supposed to turn out. Agent Thomas' death was a regrettable accident and a damn shame, but it was an accident. She sympathized with Simon about the loss of his friend. He needed understanding and time, not more of Mulder's paranoid conspiracy theories. She was right to prevent Mulder from trying to complicate a very simple accident. She'd give Mulder a chance to pout, then call him and explain her reasons for delaying the revelation about his presence. He'd understand, once he realized she had Simon's best interests at heart.

Now she had a backlog of scientific journals to read and a small pile of news reports Mulder had suggested she read. She'd been putting them off since they were the usual lurid stories that smacked more of P. T. Barnum than official crime reports. Perhaps now was a perfect time to read them. Maybe she could find an X-File in one of the stories and give Mulder something harmless to pursue. Pouring herself a fresh cup of coffee, she settled in and began sifting through the piles of journals and reports on the top of her desk.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Leaving the Hoover Building, Mulder visualized *his* bench by the Reflecting Pool and appeared about two feet behind it. After one 'accident' involving a tourist, he was extremely careful not to materialize on the bench. Today the cold weather was keeping everyone moving, so he had the bench to himself to think and brood.

This whole ghost bit was beginning to pinch. Scully seemed to be finding his presence more of an annoyance that she tolerated than a viable working partnership. She didn't own him, though he suspected that she might feel a certain proprietary claim on him. Even when he was alive, he sensed her jealousy, her need to be the only one he trusted. He hadn't stopped to consider that she might be unwilling to share his ghost to the point of jeopardizing her new partnership with Simon.

Now, she had totally rejected his suggestion that Agent Thomas' death might be more than it seemed. True, he had nothing concrete to go on, but his gut instincts told him that this was no random accident. It simply *felt* wrong, somehow. Since he was the resident expert on death, he expected Scully would at least give him a chance to explain. Well, that much in their relationship hadn't changed -- she was still locked into automatic pilot where his theories were concerned. Scully's motto seemed to be reject first, ask questions later, then come up with a rational explanation that often had very little to do with the facts of the case but sounded very nice in her reports and kept her faith in science intact. He wasn't disputing the idea that some of what they had investigated could be explained within the confines of conventional science, but she seemed to put traditional scientific theories ahead of the possibility that they were creating brand new theories.

What really hurt was that in spite of her automatic rejection of his ideas, he still respected her and, in fact, loved her. His psychology training suggested a number of very unappetizing diagnoses for his situation. He preferred to think of it as trusting her to eventually accept what her science told her didn't exist; trusting her to trust him. There, for awhile, he thought she had come to grips with her skepticism, but he was beginning to realize that she would always demand that he prove himself over and over each time a new case appeared. She trusted him, he knew that. She could hand responsibility for her life and the lives of her fellow hands over to him in a crisis. It was the day-to-day collision between them that was fraying their new relationship.

Perhaps it was time he ventured out on his own and proved to Scully that his instincts were right in this case. It was entirely too coincidental that an agent present on the raid should have a freak fatal accident within two days. He didn't want the next *accident* to happen to Scully. It was time to call in reinforcements. 

"Hey, guys," Mulder called out after giving Frohike a three-second warning whistle. He materialized as a smoky-white figure that gave the guys a physical reference while not creating a major cold front in their office.

"Hey, Mulder," Frohike greeted him with a smile. Langly waved a hand over the pile of computer parts he was assembling. Byers was leaning back in his chair scanning the latest 'Lone Gunmen' edition for errors. He looked up and nodded as he saved the file.

"I need some information." Mulder drifted over to a table and sat down. He was getting the knack of solidifying just enough to remain on top of the furniture without it requiring his constant attention. If he got excited he did have a tendency to sink, but he was working on the problem.

"Sure. Information R Us. You Hide It, We Hack It," Langly said with a grin. Frohike looked to the heavens for patience, but Mulder knew he'd be right behind Langly hacking away at their latest target.

"I need all the information you can dig up on Kent Bryson."

"The killer you and Scully took out the other day -- what about him?" Frohike asked anxiously, looking around as if he expected another ghost to appear.

"I don't know. One of the agents on the raid died yesterday morning in an accident. He slipped on the ice and hit his head. Something just doesn’t feel right," Mulder admitted. Frohike's natural assumption that he had been with Scully and had helped her take down Bryson soothed an ache he hadn't realized was there. He'd never been into the recognition and awards game other agents played, but he always knew that his actions were noted and his successes respected. Now he lived in Scully's shadow. He didn't begrudge her one iota of her acclaim or the commendation that was sure to follow, but he missed standing by her side as their fellow agents grudgingly acknowledged that they were one hell of a team.

In the weeks since their first case in Ohio, he had begun feeling more and more like a supernumerary; excess cargo. Scully would listen to his theories and often followed up on them. She was gaining a reputation as an extremely intuitive investigator. However, it was depressing to stand by and listen to agents talk about how she had blossomed since his death and speculate about whether the solve-rate of the X-Files was perhaps due more to her investigative skills rather than the unique combination of their talents. It hurt more than he ever could have imagined it would, but it wasn't something he could talk to Scully about without sounding ungrateful or envious.

"How soon you want the dirt?" Frohike asked, looking like a rat terrier anxious to go down the hole after the rat.

"As soon as possible. Just call me and I'll come back. I'm going to check out the un-crime scene," Mulder added in a fit of whimsy. He'd lost count of how many of his cases had started out with un-crimes. Hell, if that wasn't a word, it should be, he thought with irritated amusement. 

"Good to see you again, Mulder," Byers said with a sad smile. "Thanks for thinking of us."

Mulder was disconcerted, but tried not to show it. During the weeks he spent quietly harassing the guys, it never occurred to him that he could have just materialized and been accepted. He missed the camaraderie he shared with these three unlikely musketeers. Now it appeared that they accepted his new status with equanimity. 

"We're popping in some Bogart movies Saturday night. Come on by." Frohike's invitation was echoed by Langly and Byers. 

"I'll put it in my appointment book," Mulder promised with a grin as he faded from view. Depending on how things went with Scully the rest of the week, it might be nice to have a place to go. That damn fog bank was getting pretty boring. 

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Mulder popped back to the Hoover Building long enough to check Agent Thomas' records. He waited until the coast was clear, then scanned the accident report on Skinner's desk while keeping a nervous eye out for Skinner. There had been too many close calls involving Skinner, he didn't want to give him another reason to be suspicious. 

The address was in an unfamiliar part of the Arlington suburbs. That meant he was going to have to take the long way there. At least he didn't feel the cold rain that was starting to fall. If the temperatures kept dropping, the streets would be hell by evening. There were few people out on the streets to notice an opaque mist drifting against the wind as Mulder materialized just enough to orient himself. Following the map he had memorized, he was able to locate Agent Thomas' house with only one wrong turn. It was a comfortable-looking bungalow in a modest neighborhood. 

The stairs leading down from the front porch to the driveway looked innocent enough -- red brick with a cast-iron railing. He could see how slipping on them could break a man's head or neck. Everything pointed to a moment of carelessness leading to an accident. Everything except Mulder's instinct. Something felt out of place here. The air still held the faint tang of violent death. He could never explain to Scully why an accidental death felt different from death inflicted by someone else. Certainly his instincts and a ghost's ability to distinguish between types of death were not admissible evidence. However, they were enough to convince him that Agent Thomas did not die a natural death.

A sudden shove from behind threw Mulder forward through the railing and well into the garage before he could stop himself. Before he could gather his wits, another blow slammed him through a car and out the back wall. Nauseated by the feel of moving through solid objects, Mulder finally retreated to the fog bank and collected his wits. He shouldn't have been solid enough for anyone to see him, much less knock him around.

"What in hell was that?" As usual, nobody answered his question, but Mulder kept hoping that one of these days someone would slip up and reply.

Bracing himself, Mulder re-materialized on the sidewalk in front of the house and looked around for his assailant. Anger, confusion, grief -- the air was saturated with these emotions, but he couldn't see who was projecting them so strongly. Perhaps Thomas' widow had latent telekinetic abilities and she was simply lashing out with her grief. If so, her emotions packed one hell of a punch, Mulder thought with a grimace. There was only one way to be sure, so he drifted to the front door and started to slip inside. A blow that would have felled an ox hit him dead center and sent him flying into the street. The bellow of rage that followed did not sound the least bit ladylike.

As he floated several feet above the street, Mulder reconsidered his first theory and decided that he was dealing with a ghost. So much for his bland assurance to Scully that Thomas was probably comfortably established in the afterlife. Not only was Thomas not where he belonged, he was confused and enraged. Mulder wondered where in his contract it said that he had to provide psychological counseling to disturbed ghosts?

"Agent Thomas," Mulder barked, in his best authoritative voice. At least he had a witness, however unconventional. Whether Thomas could tell him anything useful was another matter. If his soul depended on it, Mulder could not accurately describe his fatal encounter with the baseball. One minute he was sprinting towards third base, the next moment he was in the damn fog wondering what in hell had happened to everyone. He had absolutely no memory of the ball hitting his head. Hopefully, Agent Thomas could do better.

"Sir?" came the startled reply. Mulder felt the rage drop a few points as shock and confusion increased. He thought he could see a faint opaque blob hovering on the front porch. It wasn't cohesive enough to be called a ghost, but he was pretty sure that was Agent Thomas.

_Gordon, I really could use your help right now._ Mulder sent a silent plea for the angel who had consoled him and explained the facts of afterlife to him. 

"I'm Agent Mulder. I need to talk with you," Mulder replied in a calm voice. 

"Agent Mulder is dead. Who are you?" Thomas sounded distraught and Mulder felt the rage quotient skyrocket. 

Mulder shimmered slightly in his ghostly equivalent of a sigh. Thomas was in full denial mode and before he got anything coherent from him, Mulder was going to have to convince him he was dead; not a pleasant prospect. 

Visualizing his badge, Mulder walked towards the fluctuating blob of ectoplasm, holding out the badge in his best professional manner. This time when the blob charged, he neatly sidestepped and watched the blob sail past him flailing wildly. Momentum carried Thomas clear across the street where he hovered uncertainly.

"I just want to talk. We can do it on the sidewalk if you'd prefer," Mulder offered. Thomas was obviously feeling very territorial; the sidewalk was neutral ground.

"Who are you?" Thomas asked plaintively as he floated to the sidewalk. 

"I'm Agent Mulder, and yes, I know I'm dead. Unfortunately, so are you," Mulder added cautiously. He wished Thomas would focus in on one shape and quit trying to imitate a kaleidoscope. 

Thomas shook his head. "No. I can't be dead." He sounded uneasy, as if the idea had been considered and rejected, but not completely.

"What's the last thing you remember?" Mulder asked in a polite, professional tone. Maybe taking a different tack would be in both their best interests. He could get some information and Thomas might realize what had happened to him. 

"Am I under investigation?" Thomas asked warily. Mulder shook his head and that seemed to reassure him. "I was leaving the house to warm up the car. I remember thinking that the steps looked icy so I took it slow and kept my hand on the rail. The next thing I know, my hand jerks off the railing and something hits me in the middle of the chest. I must have passed out because I woke up in this crazy dream. I'm ready to wake up now," Thomas yelled, looking around as if searching for a door marked 'Exit.'

"It's not a dream," Mulder told him sadly. He watched as Thomas emphatically shook his head, trying to deny what he must realize was true. "You were too good an agent to ignore the evidence," Mulder continued, gently, but implacably. This wasn't easy for him. Certain memories were best left buried, but he couldn't just leave Thomas like this. Perhaps Gordon or whoever was responsible for Thomas couldn't help him until he admitted he was dead. Mulder honestly didn't know and from his limited experience what the normal routine was. His own death and the death of Amos Peters in Viderson's Gorge back in July were anything but normal.

"Who are you?" Thomas shouted at him, then stopped in mid-sentence as a car pulled into the driveway. To Mulder's surprise, Simon got out and stared at the brick steps. Thomas ran over to Simon and tried to take his hand. Mulder winced as he braced himself for Thomas' reaction when his hand went through Simon. Thomas looked horrified, but Simon shuddered and yelped in surprise, backing up until his rump hit the side of his car. He looked around wildly. Mulder froze instinctively, trying to concentrate on being completely invisible. Simon's eyes seemed to pause for a moment, then passed on by. Mulder resisted the urge to sit down and shake. That was close. Simon was getting too damn good at sensing his presence. He seemed to pass right over Thomas, but obviously felt something when he looked in Mulder's direction.

Shaking his head and muttering to himself, Simon carefully went up the steps to the front door. A tired-looking young woman opened the door and gestured for him to come in. Thomas ran up the steps and stopped at the door and stared hopelessly at the woman. His wail of grief made Mulder shiver in sympathy. The neighborhood dogs erupted into a frenzy of howling and barking.

"They've been doing that for hours, ever since Frank . . . " She stopped, unable to continue. Simon took her elbow and guided her inside, shutting the door behind them.

"You can go in, if you'd like," Mulder offered. Thomas shook his head and slumped back down to the bottom of the steps. Mulder stood beside him, trying to find the words that would help him accept the loss of all his hopes and plans for the future. It seemed to be a case of the blind leading the blind.

"It's not easy. Trust me, I understand, but you have to accept that you're dead -- for her sake, if not for yours," Mulder urged. 

"The baby's due in four months. I promised her I'd take leave to be with her during the birth," Thomas said mournfully. 

Mulder had no words to answer him. Death was not impressed by men's hopes and plans. It came and left behind shattered dreams in its wake. At least it sounded like Thomas was beginning to accept that he was dead. That was a start. Mulder had no idea how to even begin to suggest how he find his way to the afterlife.

::Mulder::

Mulder felt Scully's call tug at him. Not now, he thought irritably, annoyed at the extremely bad timing of her call. He didn't want to ignore it. Why increase the tension between the two of them? However, Thomas needed him, or at least needed someone to help him adjust and get to where he was supposed to be. Mulder looked around, hoping to see Gordon, or any other representative from the Other Side. 

"I'm here."

Mulder was relieved to hear Gordon's soft baritone voice. Gordon materialized and nodded to Mulder before going over to Thomas. Gently Gordon embraced Thomas and began talking to him. Mulder couldn't make out what he was saying, but he thought he could make a good guess. Gordon was explaining the facts of death to Thomas and starting the process of detaching him from his earthly concerns. Wistfully, Mulder watched as a look of awe came over Thomas' face as he and Gordon stared off in the distance. They were looking past the fog bank into a realm closed to him. With a gentle push, Gordon started Thomas on his journey. After one last sorrowful look at his home and his life, Thomas nodded, squared his shoulders and marched off to his afterlife.

"Envious?"

"A little," Mulder admitted with a shrug. He was content to stay with Scully, but the longing to be at peace was a constant ache.

"I'm sorry." Gordon did sound sorry, but Mulder didn't sense that his status had changed.

::Mulder!::

"You better go to her. She doubts easily for one whose faith is so strong. It's not her time," Gordon added as a chilling non-sequitur before vanishing.

"Fuck!" Mulder cursed as he let Scully's call bring him to her. Gordon never said anything without a reason. Mulder didn't sense any danger, but fear spurred him back to the X-Files office.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

X-Files Office

 

Mulder barely hit the office before he started to materialize. As far as he could tell, Scully was fine, a bit exasperated, but nothing out of the ordinary. She started when he popped out of thin air by Simon's desk, then seemed to relax. 

"There you are. I've been calling for the past five minutes. I was getting worried," Scully said crisply. Coming down off his panic, Mulder was tempted to give her a smart-ass reply, but caught the worry in her eyes and squelched the words before they got out. It wasn't her fault that Gordon had scared the wits out of him with his oblique warning.

"I was talking with a witness to the murder of Agent Thomas," Mulder said with an air of immense satisfaction. Scully's reaction to this news, however, was not what he expected.

"And who was this mysterious witness to a crime which doesn't officially exist?" she asked brusquely. The worry that had been in her tone a moment before had been replaced by impatience. Mulder got the feeling that she was not happy he had gone investigating.

"Agent Thomas himself," Mulder replied smugly, feeling pleased that he had uncovered a mystery.

"Do tell. So he's a ghost? The FBI is going to be rather crowded with them if this keeps up."

Mulder was puzzled. Scully was sounding extremely chilly and he couldn't figure out why. This was shaping up to be one of their ritual dances, only with Scully starting out far more dismissive than usual.

"Only briefly. Gordon showed up and pointed him in the right direction. Before he left, Thomas told me that something jerked his hand off the railing and shoved him backwards." Mulder gave her the concise version of his interview with Thomas. Most of the emotional overtones were none of her business and quite frankly he didn't think she was in a position to understand the rage and denial a newly created ghost felt.

He decided not to tell her about Gordon's cryptic comment. Until he figured out what it meant, there was no need to get into a debate with her over something she didn't believe in.

"Mulder, you're grasping at straws. Agent Thomas lost his footing and gravity pulled his hand from the railing. As for the sensation of being pushed, well, it could be nothing more than the brain's attempt to explain the fall. A ghost is hardly a witness, Mulder," Scully explained with a satisfied smile. Mulder could sense that she had shoehorned all the facts into a scientific explanation and she was satisfied with the fit.

"Scully, Thomas was murdered; I'm sure of it. There was a faint trace of malevolence in the air around the stairs. I don't know how or who, but I'm confident he was murdered," Mulder argued, trying to remember to keep his voice down. He didn't want anyone barging in on a full scale argument between Scully and a ghost.

"Agent Thomas' wife says that no one was around at the time of the accident. The only footprints were those of Agent Thomas and the marks clearly indicate an accident. Why are you pushing on this? I will not go to Skinner and tell him that Thomas was murdered on such flimsy evidence. Agent Thomas' wife needs the chance to grieve, not the hassle of an investigation based on your belief. What am I supposed to tell Skinner? That my partner, not my current partner, but my dead partner, tells me that a ghost told him that he was murdered?" Scully took a breath to continue, but Mulder cut her off.

"No, I guess I'm not asking you to take my word for it. Go on as if nothing had happened, Scully. Just sometime, tell me how in hell your science explains me? I'd really like to know how you can admit I exist and appear to enjoy my company, yet deny anything else that smacks of the paranormal." Mulder was proud that he had kept his temper. In fact, he really wasn't mad, just frustrated and tired. Scully seemed to be able to compartmentalize his existence -- accepting his help in a crises, enjoying the quiet moments they spent together, yet completely denying his specialized experience in matters of violent death.

Scully looked stunned, then her lips thinned and Mulder knew he had pushed too far. Challenge Scully and she tended to clam up and retreat behind a solid wall of angry silence.

"Fine," she snapped, then sat back down at her desk. "Simon went home. He's lost a friend and didn't need to be burdened with your proposed revelation about ghosts. I was going to explain my reasons for not telling him, but you obviously still believe I was wrong. Pursue this murder investigation if you want, but I think you'll find that it amounts to nothing." 

Scully spoke in a dangerously calm, level tone that Mulder knew meant she was angry, but determined not to show it. He shimmered slightly in his version of a shrug and considered his options. If he stayed, the chances were very good that his temper would get the best of him and he'd say something that would spark one of their rare, but vicious arguments. They were so close in so many different ways that it was ridiculously easy to find and hit the other's hot buttons. 

Leaving presented other problems, but right now Mulder would rather be accused of running out on a discussion than take the risk that a lot of pent-up frustration would erupt in Scully's face. He needed to work through some issues by himself before fulfilling his promise to her to be honest. Honesty was fine in principle, but the application required some judicious timing.

"See you later, then," Mulder said as he faded from view. Scully looked surprised, then fumed a bit, but just as he was sliding out of the room, he looked back and saw a heart-wrenching wistful expression on her face. He wanted to go back and hold her, but anger lay too close to the surface for both of them. Better to leave now and give both of them a chance to work out why this disagreement was sparking such anger.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

A light afternoon snow ensured Mulder's privacy on his bench. With no other living soul in sight, he allowed himself the rare luxury of materializing as an opaque shadow until he could feel the feather-light touch of snow on his face. The cold wind blew through him unnoticed except as a faint ruffling of his ectoplasm. This was as close to being alive as he could manage. For some reason he could think better here than in his gray fog bank. Here were memories of nights spent as a living man trying to make sense of the conspiracy encroaching on his life. Here he had considered the endless possibilities of the future. Rather than depressing him, those memories helped ground him. 

After a couple of hours of staring into the snow, Mulder was no closer to an answer to his restless frustration than when he started. Scully confused him. On the one hand they were close friends, almost intimate in their emotional bond, but on the other hand she refused to concede that his existence validated his belief in the paranormal. Ruefully he realized that perhaps Scully merely regarded him as an aberration in the natural laws of physics. 

It all came down to a question of whether she was willing to accept the full ramifications of his return as a ghost, or whether she was merely indulging in a whimsical flirtation with something she only partially believed in. Scully was someone who relied heavily on physical evidence. Unfortunately, Mulder was incapable of providing her with physical evidence of his presence. He existed whether she believed in him or not, but seeing him and hearing him required her to operate on faith. Sooner or later, he was afraid that she would grow tired of the constant challenge to her science and simply stop believing. He'd still be a ghost, but she would effectively be blind and deaf to him. That scared the hell out of him, but it was a problem he had to face. 

Scully was going to have to make a personal commitment to a belief in the paranormal and that was asking her to reconfigure the very foundation of her worldview. No wonder she was testy about his pushing her to fill Simon in on the facts. Once she was forced to tell someone else about him, then she could no longer compartmentalize him and comfort herself that he was simply an anomaly to the natural laws. Scully would never yield that much ground without a fight. She was as stubborn in defense of her science as he was in his belief in the paranormal. When he was alive, it was more or less an equal fight, something they both indulged in knowing the sides were evenly matched. Now he came along with undeniable proof that the paranormal existed in spite of science and its skeptical rationalism and the entire argument shifted into a defensive war for Scully. 

After weeks of feeling like a supernumerary, Mulder was bemused to discover that he was smack in the middle of two mysteries. The threat to Scully concerned him, but it also intrigued him. He felt his mind kick into high gear as he sorted through the few facts and more numerous guesses he had accumulated. The intoxicating feel of an adrenaline high was missing, but he appeared to be far more turned on by the pure intellectual challenge than he remembered. Well, in his present state, thought was action, so he supposed this made sense.

The death of Agent Thomas tied into the threat to Scully -- he was sure of this as if he could read the mind of the suspect. For the first time since his abrupt departure from life, Mulder prepared to step out of orbit in Scully's universe. He would protect her, even over her protests, if need be. If he could also solve the mystery of the odd sense of distance and resentment he was reading from her today, then he'd be a very happy ghost. He filed away this euphoric feeling of having come home for future consideration.

What he needed was more hard data. So far, he had one death threat and one death. Both incidents were subtle, almost oblique in nature, and expertly camouflaged. Nevertheless, his instincts as a profiler, and as a ghost, were telling him that the threat to Scully and Agent Thomas' death were related. If he were writing a preliminary profile based on the interview with Thomas, and his own observations of the flowers that appeared in Scully's apartment, his initial theory was that these were acts of revenge. Less than twenty-four hours after Kent Bryson was killed in a shootout with an FBI team, one member of that team was dead and the team leader had received a death threat. Hardly a coincidence, in his not very humble opinion.

Still, as he considered his initial theory, gut instinct was telling him that there was something wrong with his hypothesis. He was drawing conclusions on limited data, but he'd done that before; it was one of his trademarks as Spooky Mulder. However, this time, he had the nagging sense that he was overlooking the obvious. He hated these moments when his subconscious would toss up doubts, but stubbornly refused to yield up any hint on what prompted the doubts. When he was alive, he would run himself into the ground chasing the answers locked away in his mind. Now, that was hardly an option and he simply simmered in frustrated irritation with himself.

His irritation vanished when he sensed that Scully was on the move. Looking around, he realized that it was almost dark. Daylight and nighttime had almost no meaning for him anymore. By whatever mechanism he saw, it didn't require light, although he could normally tell light from dark simply by the shift in the shadows cast by colors. Drowned in his own thoughts, he never noticed when a dreary gray day had turned into a dreary, drizzling twilight. 

With a thought, he was back in the X-Files office. Scully was already gone and nowhere in the building as far as he could tell. He felt a twinge of pain that she had apparently headed home without calling him. Perhaps he should leave well enough alone, but he needed to reassure himself that she was safely in for the night. Then, if she still didn't call him, he'd abide by her wish to be left alone. The guys would probably let him hang out with them if he needed company, but being at odds with Scully and wrestling with a mystery made for a bad combination. He'd probably be better off drifting around than risk alienating the only other people who accepted his existence.

Guessing that Scully was somewhere in the gummed-up morass of the typical afternoon traffic jam, Mulder headed straight to her apartment. Making a methodical sweep of the premises, he froze when he saw a large, gaudy floral arrangement sitting on Scully's dresser.

"Shit! Bloody hell," he swore viciously as sparks spun off of him. The cloyingly sweet scent of hothouse flowers barely covered the bitter smell of death clinging to the roses. He resisted the urge to hurl this abomination as far away as he could. This was evidence. Even Scully was going to have to admit that the choice of flowers had a deadly significance. Mulder began an inch-by-inch examination of the apartment, looking for trace evidence of an intruder. After making two sweeps and coming up empty, Mulder simply phased out and hovered in the gray mist of the ethereal. Scully was close by, probably within a mile or two of home. He was going to have to materialize to warn her about the flowers. Hopefully she was over her irritation and ready to listen to him with an open mind. If not, then all he could hope for was to hold his temper and keep a very close watch over her.

As he waited for Scully, Mulder pondered the situation. Whoever the suspect was, he was too damn neat for Mulder's liking. It was downright spooky how he managed to break into Scully's apartment without leaving a trace. 

Struck by a sudden thought, Mulder looked around for something solid, yet unbreakable. Grabbing a pillow from the couch, he dematerialized until he was barely solid enough to hold onto the pillow. From past experiments with Scully, he knew he was little more than a hazy shadow, barely visible unless you knew where to look. For all appearances, the pillow was floating in mid-air. Selecting a wall at random, Mulder walked straight into it. At least that's what he tried to do.

"Thought so," Mulder muttered as he tossed the pillow back on the couch. His chest still tingled from the feel of the pillow as it pressed through him after it hit the wall. If he was solid enough to hold onto the pillow, he was too solid to pass through walls.

The experiment didn't completely eliminate a ghost as the suspect, but it made it much more unlikely. A ghost would have to leave the flowers outside while he went inside and opened a window or a door to bring the flowers in. Rather complicated when there were easier ways to leave a threatening message. Still, he couldn't completely discount the idea. Ghosts were reflections of the men they'd been. 

Bryson, for instance, had a convoluted mind that got off on mind-fucking his opponents until they made mistakes out of sheer frustration. It was possible that Bryson was continuing his murder spree from beyond the grave, but the perpetrator could just as easily be a wannabe imitator. Scully would not appreciate a suggestion that their suspect, providing she was even willing to admit there was a crime committed, was a ghost. Her reaction to his mention of Thomas' earthbound spirit suggested that her patience with ghosts was running low. If he pushed too hard, she might just tell him to get lost and mean it. Mulder wasn't ready to take that chance. Once again, he was facing the choice he faced so often when alive -- how much to tell Scully and how much to simply withhold until she was better prepared to deal with it.

About a half an hour later, Scully walked in with a tired slump to her shoulders. She dropped her laptop on the table before shedding her rain-soaked coat and hanging it up carefully. Her movements were slow and deliberate, almost mechanical, as she went about her normal end-of-day routine. Watching from the ethereal, Mulder wondered where a day that had begun so well had gone so wrong. There was something eating at Scully, something more than their disagreement on whether Simon should know about him and much more than the death of an agent she barely knew. He could understand the tiredness, it was the angry resentment brewing underneath that puzzled him. The last thing he wanted was to start an argument, but he couldn't allow her to walk in on the flowers unawares.

"Hey," he said softly as he materialized next to the Christmas tree.

The look of weary resignation on her face hurt him, but she merely sighed and trotted out a tired smile; a bleak effort that betrayed just how reluctant she was to talk with him right now.

"It's been a long day, Mulder," she started in an deliberately even tone, as if she were picking her words with care.

"I know," he replied gently, "but you've had a visitor. Whoever it was left the funeral bouquet in your bedroom this time," Mulder reported in a regretful tone.

When Scully made no move to enter the bedroom, Mulder continued his report. "There's no sign of forced entry and all the doors and windows are locked from the inside. Nothing has been disturbed and the suspect left no notes."

Scully stared at him for a moment, then walked gingerly into the bedroom. The scent of the flowers was overwhelming, but as before, Scully seemed to be unaffected by the rank odor of death. Mulder drifted along behind her, watching her reaction and wondering how she could dismiss the blatant threat these flowers represented.

"They're just flowers, Mulder. I'll ask the building manager to change the locks tomorrow," she said decisively without looking at him.

"They're evidence," Mulder retorted flatly, forcing himself not to snarl as Scully picked up the vase and started to carry it into the living room. He bolted out of the way when he realized she was going to walk right through him with the flowers. True, he was invisible, but never-the-less, the thought of touching those flowers made him ill. He materialized slowly, hoping he wasn't shaking as badly as he felt he was.

"Fine, then I'll take both of them to the FBI lab in the morning. Any other surprises?" Scully asked frostily.

Mulder watched as she deposited the flowers in the closet and tried to decipher her mood. Nothing about her reactions was normal. She was abrupt, dismissive, and almost angry. If it was something he had said or done, he wished she'd just come right out and tell him off. They'd exchange angry words, then they could sit down and start sorting things out. He might be dead, but he was no mind reader. All he knew was that something was grating at her and somehow it involved him.

"No, I just wanted to make sure you were OK," Mulder replied carefully, trying to keep the sadness out of his voice. 

"I've been coping with DC traffic jams for years. I'm armed and if this secret admirer tries to drop off any more pilfered flowers, he's going to get the surprise of his life," Scully sounded almost fierce, the way he remembered her in his fondest daydreams. "Now, I'm tired and I have a lot of paperwork to do, so...." Scully fell silent, but her unspoken words rang loud and clear -- clear out.

"Sure. You know me, I worry. I'll go check in with the guys," Mulder assured her with a hearty smile. He wondered if Scully saw through the smile as easily as he saw through her attempt to be nonchalant. 

"Thanks," she said with genuine feeling. There was a moment's hesitation, then, almost as if the words were being dragged out of her, "I'm tired. Maybe it's a delayed reaction to the raid. I'll be OK."

Mulder smiled, a genuine wistful smile that softened his eyes and opened up his soul to anyone who cared to look. "Get some rest. The government won't fall if you're late with the paperwork. Trouble is, you let Skinner get used to receiving your reports on time. I had him nicely primed to expect to get them whenever I got around to doing them. You're spoiling him," Mulder added with a wistful smile. To his surprise, his quip was greeted with a dark look and a frown, before Scully seemed to gather herself in and shutter her eyes. After a moment of icy stillness, she nodded and, to his relief, gave him a rueful smile. 

_That was interesting,_ he thought. At least part of what's bothering her has to do with Skinner. _Maybe I should pay Skinner a midnight visit and suggest he be nice to my partner._ Mulder considered this option only briefly. As satisfying as it might be to haunt Skinner, the repercussions were unfathomable.

Scully continued to stare at him with an odd look, half irritation, half one of incalculable loss, for a moment before going into her bedroom and closing the door. Taking the hint, Mulder faded and headed off to find the Gunmen. Things weren't back to normal between them, but the bond was still there, if a bit frayed. Eventually they were going to have to talk, but some of the urgency Mulder felt was easing off. Whatever was bothering her could wait, a day or so, until she worked some of it out herself.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Lone Gunmen's Office - midnight, Monday evening

 

Sitting around chatting with the Gunmen almost seemed like old times. The guys appeared to accept him with only an occasional wary glance, usually when Mulder forgot to keep himself solid enough to remain on top of the furniture. After catching up on the usual conspiracy gossip, Mulder simply sat back and watched as the guys hacked their way in and out of a variety of secure systems. At first Langly was a bit self-conscious about having a witness, but eventually he shrugged and apparently decided that Mulder was hardly qualified to testify in court even if someone managed to serve a summons on him.

Mulder hovered over Frohike's shoulder and offered password suggestions for a suspicious center that had far more security than a simple research library should have. He marveled at Frohike's stubborn determination not to let the system outwit him. 

"Hey, Mulder, wasn't Tim Gowers one of the agents on Scully's team?" Byers asked suddenly from his corner where he had been attempting to trace Bryson's movements before he started indulging in kidnapping and murder three years ago. 

Mulder tore his mind away from recalling as many non-PC words and phrases which could be used as passwords, and tried to recall who had followed Scully into Bryson's house. He hadn't really paid attention to any of the other agents. None of them had crossed his path when he was alive, although he was familiar with a couple of their names. All good men and steady agents. Skinner had given Scully a top-notch team and she had proved herself with flying colors, in Mulder's admittedly biased opinion. 

"Older man, about forty or so, dark hair, a bit on the militaristic side," Byers offered. He seemed tense, almost hesitant, as if he didn't really want an answer, but had to ask.

"Yeah, I remember him. All spit and polish and 'yes, ma'am,'" Mulder recalled as the face of the agent came into focus in his memory. "What about him?" he asked warily. Mulder flatly refused to consider that he was developing precognition, but something about the way Byers was holding his breath did not suggest that he had good news.

"Just caught a police scanner transmission. A Tim Gowers was involved in an accident on Massachusetts Avenue. I don't have any details, but the policeman on the scene sounds upset."

"Damn." Mulder got up and started pacing, prompting Langly to bolt for the safety of the kitchen. Frohike held his ground, but flinched whenever Mulder came too close. Mulder's mind was spinning into high gear. Two accidents in two days -- Scully was going to have to concede that these were not coincidences. Even her strict scientific rationalism couldn't dispute statistical probabilities. The odds were too great that two of her team members would die in separate accidents on successive days. If this didn't scream murder to her, then she was in total denial. She was too good an investigator to turn her back on evidence, even if she didn't like what it told her.

At least she was safe, so far. Then, as if the proverbial light bulb went off over his head, Mulder realized what the suspect was doing. He cursed his stupidity. So much for the omniscience of the dead. He'd been so taken with his ability to discern spirits and sense the odor of death that he had completely overlooked the obvious intent of the suspect. Now wasn't the time to indulge in a long fit of self-recrimination, but he spared a few moments for creative profane comments about the decline in his mental abilities since his death.

The flowers weren't a direct threat to Scully, they were announcements that another one of her men was going to be eliminated. Out of five team members, there were three left. Mulder had no doubt that Scully was the last name on the list. She was supposed to watch helplessly as the men under her command were killed, then she would die. It fit Bryson's MO. The only problem was that Bryson was dead and Mulder didn't think Skinner was going to accept the theory that Bryson's ghost was the leading suspect. Hell, he was almost certain Scully wasn't going to accept that theory. Simon, on the other hand, would probably give it serious consideration, but Mulder wasn't about to risk Scully's wrath by outing himself to Simon.

"Where on Massachusetts Avenue? I want to see this crime scene before everyone tidies it up and sweeps vital evidence under the rug," Mulder said in an irritable tone of voice. He hoped that he wasn't going to have to deal with another confused spirit. There were only so many times he could watch a spirit cross over into the afterlife without going mad.

"Over near that Italian restaurant you used to frequent, Gizzani's."

"Thanks guys. See you later." Mulder waved as he disappeared and concentrated on the rococo front door of Gizzani's Ristorante. 

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

The flashing blue lights of a squad car flickered across the rain-slicked street a couple of blocks away from the restaurant. Mulder took a moment to orient himself before moving cautiously in that direction. His memory replayed the taste of Gizzani's superb manicotti and linguini and he wished ghosts could enjoy the aroma of food. He could smell, after a fashion, but it wasn't the same. 

The accident scene was one of the worst Mulder had ever seen. As he slipped around the small crowd that had gathered, he thought that the initial reports had been wrong, there were two cars involved. Perhaps this was just a random accident and he was just hypersensitive to any event touching on the Bryson case. Then he realized that he was looking at just one car, split in two. The front half was wrapped around the stump of a utility pole like a pretzel. The back half had come to rest about a half a block down the street against concrete wall. The utility pole was lying across two parked cars; wires were sparking against the asphalt, completely encasing one poor man in his car. The man was alive; Mulder could see his terrified face staring fixedly at the wires crackling against his windshield.

A young cop was directing traffic as a pair of paramedics waited off to one side while the utility crew worked to shut off the power. The cop looked a little green around the gills. A rookie, Mulder thought sympathetically. This was probably his first really bad accident, and with the luck of all rookies, he'd probably just had dinner. Mulder wished he could offer sympathy, but the last thing the kid needed was a ghost appearing out of nowhere. One of the real downsides of being a ghost was the inability to offer a comforting word, or even an understanding nod. _How many ghosts were driven mad simply because they couldn't connect on an emotional level to people any more?_ he wondered. He didn't know, but he was determined he wasn't going to be one of them. He flirted with madness enough when he was alive; he had no intention of going mad now.

The smell of blood was everywhere. _What genius decreed that ghosts could smell blood and death, but couldn't indulge in the comforting smell of spaghetti?_ Mulder grumbled to himself. It just wasn't fair, but it was just the latest injustice he could add to a long list. Bracing himself for the prickly sensation of entering an area where a violent death had occurred, Mulder moved forward.

_Wrong half,_ he thought as his non-existent stomach tried to do a queasy roll. 

"I bet normal ghosts don't get nauseous," he complained to the empty air as he stared at the lower half of Gowers' body lying in a sticky pool of blood and ruptured intestines under the dashboard. The impact had literally torn him in half. No wonder the rookie sounded so upset when he made his report. The kid was probably going to have nightmares about this accident for weeks.

Mulder was no expert on accidents, but it didn't take an expert to deduce that Gowers had to have been going over 90 mph down a rain-slicked urban street when he collided with the utility pole. That didn't sound like the meticulous, by-the-book agent he recalled.

The sound of several more police cruisers told him that either it was a very slow night, or else the young cop had found Gowers' badge and this accident was being scrutinized by both police and FBI. It looks bad for the Bureau when a senior agent decides to use the city streets for his private racetrack. No doubt the spin-masters were already gearing to either paint this as a tragic accident that cut short a brilliant career, or else distance the Bureau from an agent who recklessly endangered civilian lives. He despised the bureaucrats who made their living trying to keep the Bureau's image sparkling clean. 

The live wires actually tickled a bit as he walked through them to get to the other half of the car. Several policemen were already making their way cautiously around the wires to the other side of the car. Suddenly the wires went dead as the utility crew cut the power. Mulder reached the car ahead of the paramedics and looked inside. Gowers' upper body was still strapped to the seat. His arms were sheared off at the elbow, probably still gripping the steering wheel. Mulder didn't recall seeing the steering wheel with the other half of the car, which meant that a nasty surprise waited for one lucky cop scouring the scene.

What struck Mulder most of all was the look of terror frozen on Gowers' face. As far as Mulder could tell, Gowers had died of massive trauma and blood loss, but his upper body, except for the arms, was more or less intact. The impact that sheared the car in two must have slung this half away like a stone skipping along the surface of a pond. Gowers had time to see his death coming, poor man, Mulder reflected. That might explain why he felt no trace of a confused spirit in the area. Gowers knew he was going to die and simply went where good little spirits are supposed to go without any fuss. 

"Now what possessed you to try to play chicken with a utility pole? Coincidence? I don't think so. Coincidences aren't usually this convenient." Mulder muttered quietly to himself as he observed the forensics team sketch the accident and take about rolls of film from every angle imaginable. 

If the killer was human, he was too damn good at covering his trail. If he was a ghost, then the explanation was extremely simple, although how the ghost knew which car was Gowers', much less how to intercept it, was something Mulder couldn't explain. He could zero in on Scully, but their emotional connection was so strong, he suspected that he could find her in the middle of a stampede. A human killer could have tinkered with Gowers' car and waited for the inevitable. Chancy, but safe. Scully would probably embrace this explanation, but it just didn't feel right to him. The ghost theory was more complicated, but felt right. 

Mulder sighed in exasperation. It was Spooky Mulder, the golden boy of ISU, all over again -- disregarding plain, straightforward facts for the more esoteric explanation on the basis of what *felt* right. The fact that he usually turned out to be correct didn't make his theories any more palatable to the agents who had to turn them into hard evidence. 

"I'll do a routine check for alcohol, of course," an indignant voice erupted from behind Mulder. Checking to make sure he was completely invisible, he turned and watched as a young medical examiner leaned into the car and started a visual check of the body in situ. 

"Take it easy, man. It's not every night we have a senior FBI agent try to drag race down a slick street. If he wasn't drunk, then I want some of what they're putting in the coffee machines over there," an older cop said as he leaned in beside the ME. "Damn accident is going to be a bitch as far as paperwork is concerned. The FBI's already prowling around. The papers can't be far behind. We fuck up and our asses will be ground up for dog meat."

"Anyone ever tell you that you worry too much, Jack?"

"Yeah, but worrying is what got me these sergeant's stripes and worrying is what will keep them on until I retire," Jack retorted as he pointed his flashlight under the front seat. 

"Fred, Tyree, start doing an inch-by-inch search of the street. I don't want so much as a fingernail overlooked." Jack snapped the order without even looking up. Two late arrivals simply looked at each other, sighed, and grabbed gloves and flashlights as a light, misting rain began to fall.

Realizing that he had gathered all the information he could, Mulder retreated to the sidelines. He wanted to see the autopsy report, but he was willing to bet Gowers was stone-cold sober when his car became a speeding coffin. 

Rather than instantly teleporting back to the Gunmen's office, or even to Scully's place, Mulder chose to drift silently along the street, trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together. Taking the long way home was the closest he could come to a hard five-mile run. He remembered joking to his colleagues in ISU that a good five-mile run did more to fit the pieces together than twelve hours staring at the walls of his office.

If Bryson's ghost was responsible, there was no way the FBI could stop him. That meant it was up to him and he had almost no experience in ghost hunting. He wasn't even sure how to banish a ghost. He'd fought one once, but he still wasn't entirely sure how he defeated it. It appeared to be a matter of who had the stronger will. The idea of battling it out with Bryson was unnerving, but the idea of letting him get anywhere near Scully, or Simon for that matter, was unthinkable. 

Profiling Bryson wasn't any easier the second time around, but Mulder kept at it until he was reasonably certain he had a tenuous pattern to Bryson's moves. The only problem was that he couldn't be sure he was profiling the right suspect. Scully and Simon needed to be in on this case. If he was right, then Bryson would methodically eliminate the team members, leaving Simon for last. Simon was Scully's partner. Bryson understood the bond between partners and would take particular interest in making Simon's death as gruesome as possible. Then it would be Scully's turn. The only thing Bryson hadn't counted on was that Scully had more than one partner and one of them didn't play by the rules any more.

After several miles, Mulder decided he had done all he could with the scant evidence he had to work with. Almost with relief, he thought of Scully's apartment. The place was dark and he could hear her slow, steady heartbeat coming from the bedroom. She was asleep and unaware that another member of her team was dead, killed in a freak accident. Mulder drifted into her bedroom and perched quietly on the end of her bed where he watched over her sleep each night. 

After a moment, he decided to let her learn of Gowers' death through official channels. There was no need to put her on the defensive any sooner than he had to. She might resist believing that the deaths were part of an orchestrated campaign of murder, but she was too good an investigator to deny that the evidence was beginning to build in favor of murder. Meanwhile, he would guard her sleep. At least at night she would be safe. If the pattern held, however, another delivery of flowers was due tomorrow night. This time, Mulder intended to be waiting.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Scully's Apartment - later that night

 

With the ingrained precognition of a law enforcement officer, Scully came awake a scant half-second before the phone rang. Glowering sleepily at the offending instrument that had shattered a warm, comforting dream of a fully corporeal Mulder, a tantalizing X-File, and a pleasant walk in the woods, she tried to keep the resentment out of her voice as she answered it.

"Dana Scully." 

Briefly her mind flashed back to those rare occasions when Mulder would call her with some new lead to whatever X-File had grabbed the attention of his erratic genius. Although she always grumbled, she secretly enjoyed the fact that he trusted her with his enthusiasms. She got to see that side of him he kept camouflaged from the doubters and nay-sayers in the Bureau. Until he abruptly died, she had never fully appreciated the trust he had bestowed on her when he allowed his enthusiasm free rein.

"Agent Scully..."

At the sound of her official title, Scully came fully alert, her mind already shifting away from pleasant memories to the stern requirements of duty. Official phone calls at 2 a.m. rarely came with good news attached. When Mulder was alive, part of her always clenched tight, trying to brace herself against the news that Mulder was dead, killed by the shadows he believed held secrets to what happened to his sister and to her.

"This is Assistant Director Skinner. Agent Gowers was killed early this morning in a one-car accident." Skinner hesitated, trying to choose his next words carefully.

"Sir? I'm sorry. Gowers was a good agent, but is there a reason you're calling at 2 a.m. to tell me this?" Scully tried to keep the impatience out of her voice. This was news that could have waited until morning. She had barely known Gowers, although she was impressed with his style and performance during the raid.

"I'm calling to alert you to the fact that I have assigned an agent to protect you. He should be arriving outside your apartment building within a matter of minutes. Agent Parrish is under my direct orders to see that you don't suffer an accident. I have also assigned agents to protect Agents Ambercrombie and Delacontrari," Skinner said brusquely. His tone left very little room for protests, but that had never deterred Scully in the past, and didn't even slow her down now.

"Sir, I fail to see how a bodyguard can prevent *accidents* from happening," Scully retorted frostily. She happened to glance down at the end of her bed and saw the smoky-gray amorphous shadow-form of Mulder start to take on a more solid form. Mulder's expression told her that he knew about this latest accident and was prepared to argue that it was evidence of some sort of murder spree.

"Two accidents in two days that take the lives of two members of a team whose only connection was a raid that ended in the death of a suspect is not coincidental in my books. You will cooperate with Agent Parrish. I am not putting you in protective custody because I need your insight and skills on this case, but you will accept whatever protection I choose to assign, is that clear, Agent Scully?" Skinner said with complete confidence that his orders would be obeyed.

"Perfectly, Sir," Scully snapped with enough resentment oozing out of her voice to make it clear to Skinner that this subject would be discussed, at length, in the morning.

"Good. I've called a meeting of the remaining members of your team and a task force from Violent Crimes in my office at 9 a.m. I will see you then." Skinner hung up, leaving Scully fuming impotently at the receiver.

"OK, Mulder, what's going on?" she growled, trying not to transfer her resentment at Skinner to Mulder. 

"Gowers tore his car and himself apart racing down Massachusetts Avenue late last night. My best estimate is that he was going nearly 100 mph before he collided with a utility pole." Mulder kept his tone level and gave her just the bare bones report.

"Drunk?" 

"Not a drop as far as I could tell. He was terrified before he died, Scully. He saw death coming and couldn't do a thing to stop it." 

"And I suppose you're going to tell me that someone tampered with the car, or miraculously disappeared from the car....." Scully stopped in mid-sentence and glared at Mulder. "You believe that Gowers was killed by a ghost?" Scully sounded almost outraged at the idea.

"It's one possibility. Unless Gowers took up drag-racing on a city street at his age, then I see no other explanation than murder," Mulder answered quietly. "Who or what the suspect is, is still open to speculation." His tone was calm and professional. They might as well have been discussing the merits of Kirlian photography over the use of black light to document evidence missed by human eyes. She wanted to tell him that the very idea that ghosts could kill was ridiculous, but even rationalism wasn't up to the task of arguing against the existence of ghosts with a ghost. 

Scully fumed for a few minutes then closed off, tucking her exasperation and temper under a mask of cool professionalism. Let Mulder see that she could accept defeat graciously. She'd consider his ghost theory, but she had every confidence that a perfectly human suspect would appear, if indeed there was anything to this murder theory.

"Well, we'll see what the task force Skinner has formed has to say. I doubt if anyone is going to bring up the subject of ghosts and I won't be your front man for the idea. Now, I'm going back to sleep." Scully abruptly slid back down under the covers and closed her eyes, effectively ending the conversation. She didn't go back to sleep for over an hour as she fought the rising tide of resentment directed at both Skinner and Mulder for placing her in an impossible situation. Skinner had no right to assume she couldn't defend herself. As for Mulder, he was too damn right, too many times. She was tired of being the one who got to replay his theories to an admiring Simon and Skinner. Where was Agent Dana Scully, the rational scientist who believed in hard facts and solid evidence? Feeling lost and adrift, Scully gradually slipped into an uneasy sleep, always aware at some level, of Mulder's silent presence. Usually it comforted her. Tonight it galled and grated on her already raw conscience. _Damn him. Damn me, for letting him take over my life._

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=  
Tuesday morning, December 15th

 

Mulder paced the limits of Scully's apartment while she dressed and bustled through her morning routine in complete silence. Something about the way she held herself, as if braced for anything he might say, kept him from his usual morning banter. He concentrated on being as unobtrusive as possible. Finally, he found the atmosphere so uncomfortable that he decided to head for the office early. After cautiously checking for any sign that Simon was in the office, Mulder materialized to a comfortable smoky haze at his old desk, now Scully's, and considered the problem. It felt like old times when he showed up at the crack of dawn to sit in the dim light of his office and wrestle with evidence that just wouldn't fit together.

Bryson, or whoever had taken up his cause, was not going to strike again until he had completed his ritual offering of false sympathy. Mulder didn't have great faith that Skinner's security measures would be any deterrent, especially if the killer was Bryson, but the addition of a witness might force the killer to rearrange his plans. Delacontrari was in the greatest danger, if his profile was correct. Mulder had to find a way to convince Scully to insist that Delacontrari be put under close watch. If they could frustrate Bryson's neat ritual, then he was going to be forced to extemporize, and that was exactly what got him caught the last time. 

Feeling the need to pace, Mulder unconsciously followed old patterns which took him through several pieces of furniture. As he passed through Simon's desk he felt resistance, as if he was pushing his way through a sticky web. He was caught for a moment, then broke free and turned to see what he'd run into. 

_Fuck._ Mulder stared at a complex spider-web device made out of what appeared to be cotton lashed to an ash-wood frame swinging gently from the arm of the overhead lamp Simon used for close work. It was no bigger than his fist, but it was sufficient to do the job. "A ghost trap," Mulder muttered in an exasperated tone. "A fucking ghost trap." Just what he needed and what was sure to piss Scully off, though how he was supposed to know that Simon had trapped his desk was beyond him. Apparently Simon decided to do some investigating on his own about the mysterious presence he felt. Mulder stared at the wisps of ectoplasm fluttering from the web and tried to figure out a way to destroy the evidence. A gentle nudge of his hand left more ectoplasm stuck to the web and Mulder pulled back shaking his hand. Leaving a piece of himself behind felt weird. Once again he simply lacked the words to describe a feeling that had no relevance for the living. 

Casting his mind over the various tricks of the ghost-hunting trade, Mulder realized that short of picking up the item and destroying it, there was no way he was going to get the ectoplasmic evidence off. He was well and truly caught red-handed. This was not going to be easy to explain to Scully. She was the only person he knew who could deny that ghosts, as a class, existed, while at the same time believe that ghosts had some supernatural ability to see all and know all. In spite of all their discussions, he had yet to make her understand that he was the exact same Mulder he was when he was alive. Death had not improved his tendency to walk blindly into trouble or transformed his ability to become so absorbed in a problem that he could block everything else out.

His urge to pace squelched, Mulder melted into the shadows in the far corner of the office and awaited his fate. It really didn't matter who arrived first. The fat was in the fire and he could already hear his butt sizzling. Lacking anything better to do, he glared at the offending trap. It looked like one of those harmless Dream-Catchers, a simple ornament as far as anyone living was concerned. Nevertheless it was an extremely effective trap. The problem was, Mulder recalled seeing it on Simon's desk for over a week now. He'd paid it no mind since he usually avoided going anywhere near Simon when he was in the office. It was simply a decorative item. 

Apparently Simon had begun putting the clues together and set up this trap before the raid on Bryson's house. If he suspected that the X-Files office was haunted, then he must also suspect who was the ghost in question. There weren't too many candidates for the job. After all, who but Spooky Mulder had reason to haunt the place. Mulder wondered if Simon worried that Mulder's ghost was haunting him in revenge. If that was the case, then Scully or no Scully, Mulder was obligated to set him straight. He'd deal with the fallout from Scully's temper, but he refused to have Simon spend the rest of his life feeling guilty for a stupid accident and a fuck-up by karmic bureaucrats. 

Coming to the decision to tell Simon the truth, Mulder felt calmer than he'd felt in weeks. Scully would be furious, but perhaps a good blowout would clear the air. If Scully got mad enough, she might just let slip what was bothering her. A dangerous strategy and not one he normally would have tried, but sometimes a frontal assault was the only way to deal with Scully's stubborn refusal to talk about her problems. If he was the problem. . . . If the strain of dealing with a ghost day in and day out was at the root of her anger, then he'd rather step away voluntarily than come to the day when she told him to go away and mean it. In any event, the decision was out of her hands. Now all he could do was weather the storm and hope their bond held.

The sound of heels coming down the hallway was almost a relief. Mulder felt Scully's presence before her hand touched the doorknob. Her aura was tightly controlled, a warning that she was in full professional mode with all emotions battened down. She reminded him of a clipper ship sailing with storm warnings hoisted, but prepared to challenge the storm rather than run from it. This was her 'Special Agent Dana Scully, don't mess with me, I'm armed and dangerous' mood. Mulder never understood why she felt that a cool, no-nonsense attitude was the only way she could earn respect in the FBI, but it was as much as part of her as her red hair. Maybe it was just the technique she developed to deal with one very exasperating former partner who was no less bothersome now that he was dead.

Bracing himself for his ensuing confession, Mulder materialized to a semi-solid, opaque form and moved to stand beside Simon's desk. He heard the blowers from the heating vents gear up to counter the abrupt drop in temperature in the room.

"Morning, Scully," he greeted her as she came in the door. Aside from a started look, she didn't seem too surprised to see him.

"I wondered where you'd gone off to," she replied in a neutral tone. Mulder couldn't read her at all, which was a pretty good indication that her feelings about him this morning were decidedly mixed.

"Shouldn't you be invisible or something? Simon will be here any minute."

Scully sat down at her desk and began her morning routine -- boot up computer, check e-mail, stash briefcase under desk, then head over to the coffee pot.

"It's not going to matter," Mulder offered cautiously. The abrupt snap of her eyebrows into a rigid peak told him that this confession was not off to a good start.

"And why not?" Scully asked in a dangerously calm tone. If looks could freeze, Mulder would have been a Popsicle. As it was, he fought the urge to just disappear.

"Because Simon finally put the clues together and set a trap." Mulder felt the first stirrings of his own anger. What right did Scully have to act like she was his keeper? It was the same pattern over and over, and Mulder was tired of being made to feel like an errant child. To her credit, Mulder knew that Scully didn't think of her attitude that way, but it rubbed him raw nonetheless.

"And you fell into it," Scully said with a disgusted shake of her head.

"Yes. You see, Scully, the thing about traps is that they aren't meant to be detected," Mulder replied with a slightly sarcastic snip to his tone. He was not going to be made the goat here. He made a mistake which would not have occurred if Scully hadn't been so damn stubborn about confiding in Simon.

"Did you even try?" Scully's tone was frigid, almost dismissive. She was in one of her rare moods where anger and frustration came together and focused on the nearest target. Mulder wondered who caught the brunt of this storm before he came along. He knew Scully was only marginally angry with him, but he was a convenient target when the real target was intangible.

"Stop that," Mulder snapped authoritatively. He rarely used that tone of voice, and almost never with Scully, but he had had enough. "I was, and am, many things, but I have never deliberately lied to you, or manipulated you. If this is what you think of me, then perhaps I should go." Mulder's temper flared, but he was in control, barely. From the shocked look on Scully's face, he realized that she hadn't expected him to fight back. Perhaps it was past time she realized that what she said and did could hurt him deeply.

Looking at Scully fighting shock and anger, Mulder felt his anger melt away. He knew that his rage was really directed at Bryson and the man killing off her team, not Scully, who was caught in a trap of her own making. 

"I'm not your possession, Scully," he told her in a soft, sad voice, trying to persuade rather than command. "You can't keep me locked up like some treasured memory. In all the essential ways, I'm still the man I was. I've respected your wishes, but either you tell Simon, or I will." Delivering this ultimatum hurt, as did the look of angry betrayal in Scully's eyes, but there was no longer a choice. Then he decided to deliver his last bombshell before leaving her to consider the situation. "Simon doesn't deserve to think that I've come back to haunt him out of revenge." 

Leaving Scully looking as if he'd punched her in the stomach, Mulder faded out. He tried not to feel guilty for lashing out. That had always been his problem when alive. He really hated hurting Scully, even if it was for her own good. It was too easy to feel like a bully and retract the verbal slap across the face. She gave him enough wake-up-and-get-with-the-program slaps and never seemed to feel the slightest twinge of remorse. Why should he feel guilty for giving her the same? 

_Guess I'm still caught in the older brother routine,_ he thought ruefully. _Part bully, part knight-protector, and confused as hell about which part to play when._

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Scully stood in the suddenly deserted X-Files office poised between anger and dismay. Ever since the raid on Bryson's house, she felt as if she and Mulder were standing on opposite sides of a tremendous chasm with only a frayed and tenuous rope linking them. She wanted to blame the schism on his infuriating insistence that she tell Simon about him, but honesty forced her to admit that she bore part of the blame. Maybe this whole ghost bit was just too much of a strain. Everyday she gave thanks that she still had Mulder around, but just as often she cursed his impetuousness and unwillingness to listen to reason. She was tired of the constant stress of mixed emotions.

Wearily she sat down at her desk and tried to regain the fragile sense of calm she had managed to assume during the drive to work. _Damn Mulder and his carelessness. He should have been more careful,_ she thought grumpily. Trust Mulder to stick his foot in it and then dump everything on her to straighten out. Now she had Simon to deal with in addition to Skinner. Although Agent Parrish was discreet, she hated the idea that somebody was following her, or that Skinner didn't think she was capable of taking care of herself. Only the fact that Skinner had said that he was assigning an agent to Simon had kept her from protesting more strenuously. Well, that and the fact that Skinner probably would have ignored her protests, she grudgingly admitted to herself. 

Just thinking about Skinner brought back the low-level headache that had plagued her for the past month. It would be nice to blame Mulder for the situation she found herself in, but it wasn't entirely his fault. _Well, it was, but not really._ Once again, she found herself going over the same problem over and over with no solution in sight. Mulder was simply being Mulder, and his insights into the cases were invaluable. It had never occurred to her that in the process of solving the cases, she was acquiring a reputation as a crack investigator. It hurt to hear whispered gossip that perhaps it hadn't been Spooky Mulder who was the brains behind the X-Files, but rather Agent Scully. 

Her initial reaction had been anger that people could discount Mulder so quickly. Then resentment set in and an uneasy awareness that she was accepting honors and commendations for work not entirely her own. She felt cheapened, almost grimy, each time Skinner praised her handling of a difficult case when she knew that without Mulder's insights the case might not have been solved, or at least not as quickly. Now she was facing the possibility of receiving an official commendation for saving the lives of her team by leading them out of Bryson's maze of booby-traps. Skinner took her protests as an overactive case of modesty and she couldn't find the words to tell him that if it hadn't been for Mulder, she and every other agent in that house, plus all of the hostages, would have died in a catastrophic explosion.

Resisting the temptation to indulge in some of her father's choicer curses, Scully resolutely began putting her desk in order for the day. If the saints were with her, Simon would arrive at the last minute and there'd be no time to explain about Mulder before they were due in Skinner's office. Considering the way her day was going, St. Jude seemed the most appropriate one to appeal to. When she heard the elevator doors open a moment later, she decided that there were some disasters beyond even the power of the saints to avert.

Squelching the urge to bolt, Scully pulled herself together and tried to figure a way out of the trap Mulder so neatly shoved her into. As irritated as she was at Mulder, she also knew he meant his ultimatum -- either she told Simon, or he would. Having little choice, and hearing Simon at the door, Scully took a deep breath and wished she had Mulder's facility for making impossible theories sound almost plausible. She'd never told him how much she envied his ability to be convincing with miniscule proof.

"Morning, Scully," Simon said as he hung up his coat and headed for his desk. Scully made a non-committal response as she pretended to be absorbed in reading her e-mail. Maybe he won't notice, she thought plaintively, but without much hope. If Simon had set the trap, then it must mean that he expected to catch something.

A low whistle told her that Simon had seen the evidence of Mulder's presence. Glancing up she saw him standing in front of his desk, staring at the spinning ornament. From here, she could see thin filaments of what could be taken as spider-threads hanging off the cotton matrix. In spite of herself, she was intrigued. This was solid evidence, after a fashion, that ghosts existed. The rational part of her brain began to marshal arguments against the evidence of her own eyes, but she didn't have the heart to listen to them. She was tired of being rational, even though she knew it was so much a part of her that she couldn't help the doubts and questions. There was something very sad about those flimsy gray strands fluttering in the air. Mulder didn't deserve to be reduced to a handful of gray filaments. 

Looking up, she realized that Simon was staring at her, his mouth half open as if he was torn between asking a question and saying nothing. No one could ever say that she was afraid to confront a situation head-on when the situation demanded it, Scully reminded herself. 

"What?" Well, that wasn't the most promising start, but Scully was having trouble finding the right words. To soften what might have sounded a bit abrupt, she gave Simon one of her rare gentle smiles. Simon looked confused for a moment, then took a deep breath. Scully braced herself. To her dismay, she found herself wishing that Mulder were here beside her. _Since when do I need him to handle a simple discussion with my partner?_ Since a miracle gave him back to her and she found herself caught between the rocks of her scientific denial and the shore of her need for him, she admitted sadly to herself.

"Scully . . . ," Simon started, then stopped and took another deep breath. Scully hoped he wouldn't hyperventilate and had to hide a smile at the thought of Simon abruptly fainting at her feet. It might delay the conversation, but Simon didn't deserve that kind of humiliation. In fact, she realized, he didn't deserve being put on the spot. Whatever her problems with Mulder were, Simon was only being the curious, intelligent man she valued as a partner. She was still angry with Mulder, but that anger didn't need to be taken out on Simon.

"It's all right, Simon. I imagine you have a lot of questions. I don't have all of the answers, but . . . ." she hesitated, then plunged forward, "I'll try to answer what I can."

"Who?" Simon sounded wary, but determined.

Trust Simon to reduce the entire question of haunting down to a simple one-word question, Scully thought ruefully. 

"Mulder," she replied with a sad smile. At Simon's flinch, she hastened to explain.

"He's not here haunting you. In fact, he doesn't blame you at all for what happened." Scully took a deep breath. The world hadn't fallen down around her ears with that admission. Maybe she could get through this ordeal. 

"Why not? It was my ball that killed him," Simon said with a stubborn set to his mouth. 

_Why me?_ Scully asked an unresponsive heaven. Two partners, both of them experts in taking on more than their fair share of guilt. 

"Because accidents happen. Besides, Mulder seems to feel that he's the victim of a bureaucratic mix-up in heaven. He never did get along with bureaucrats," Scully offered in a tentative attempt at humor. To her relief, Simon attempted a smile in return.

"Hello, Simon," Mulder said as he slowly materialized in the back corner of the office. Scully bit back a confused surge of relief and irritation. Trust Mulder to be hanging around watching her twist in the wind, but it was very good to see him. Simon's expression was priceless and she had to turn a laugh into a discreet cough. Dumbfounded was a vast understatement.

"You're . . . you're . . . ." Simon stopped, raised his hand as if to point at the apparition forming in front of his eyes, and took a deep breath. "You're a ghost?"

Mulder nodded. "Damn smart trap you laid, Agent Ambercrombie. I never saw it until I left a bit of myself behind. What clued you in?" he asked in a cheerful, off-handed way. Mulder was obviously enjoying himself. Scully gave him a stern glare which he shrugged off before giving her a big smile. Try as she could, it was difficult to remain mad at him when he smiled like that. She contented herself with an exasperated shake of her head, but knew that the smile forming on her own lips gave her away.

Simon sat down abruptly as he tried to process the fact that he was calmly talking with the ghost of the man he had killed.

"You were expecting anger? Or maybe a lot of chain rattling and eerie moans in the night?" Mulder asked with a chuckle.

Simon looked pale, but nodded.

"Sorry. I suppose I could find some chains, but I'd rather sit here and hold a reasonable conversation and I'm not very good at moaning -- I think it has something to do with my lack of pitch."

"Simon, Mulder's been around since July. He's the one who got us through Bryson's traps," Scully said calmly. Someone needed to be the calm, rational one in this conversation. Mulder was having too much fun, and Simon looked shell-shocked.

"Then I wasn't imagining things?" Simon said with relief. 

"No. Your damnable sixth sense has been driving me crazy," Mulder admitted as he carefully hopped up to perch on the printer table. He was maintaining a hazy solidity, but the wall was visible through him. 

"You understand that Mulder's existence is not something we want to go beyond this office. I'm not sure what his enemies would do with the information." Scully really didn't want to think about the possibility that Cancer Man might discover that Mulder was still around. It was bad enough to play that scenario out in her nightmares, she didn't want to think about it in the light of day.

"Just consider me a silent partner in the office. You and Scully have been doing a crack job so far," Mulder conceded, trying to filter out the jealousy he felt. Simon had enough to cope with right now. 

"You don't mind?" Simon asked curiously. His expression still bore a strong resemblance to a deer caught in the headlights, but he was rallying fast. Scully was impressed. She supposed that since he already believed in ghosts, accepting that he was talking to one came a bit easier than it had for her. 

"Hell, yes, I mind, but sitting around brooding about it gets rather boring after awhile," Mulder snapped. His form shivered for a moment in the ghostly equivalent of a sigh. "I'm not some all-powerful manifestation, Simon. I'm just a corporally-challenged Fox Mulder. Scully can explain some of the problems -- like the strong case of the shivers you're experiencing now."

Simon stopped shaking, tried to hold himself stiff, then gave up. "Your doing?" he asked as he looked longingly towards his coat.

"Yeah. The more visible I am, the colder it gets. I'll fade out a bit before I turn both of you into ice cubes." Mulder obligingly faded until he was a gray hazy shadow barely visible. Scully relaxed as the room temperature began to return to normal. Even as used as she was to this aspect of Mulder's materialization, she still felt the cold down to her bones. Simon, who had been closer to Mulder, slowly stopped shivering and gave a long shuddering sigh as he felt the heat from the furnace hit him.

"I can be just a voice, but Scully finds it a little easier to take if there's at least a hazy outline to focus on. I usually give a whistle," Mulder paused to demonstrate before continuing, "before I materialize, and I always try to check out who's present. You nearly walked in on me more times than I want to remember."

"I'm not sure I believe this. I knew something odd was going on, but I didn't think about a ghost until Scully started acting strangely in Bryson's house. She acted as if she was listening to someone before each step. I'm relieved to find out that it was you and not because she was having visions," Simon admitted with a sheepish look at Scully.

Scully bristled for a moment, then gave Simon an amused cock of her eyebrow. He flushed and shrugged. She refused to look at Mulder, but she could tell he was remembering all the times she cocked that eyebrow at one of his outrageous double-entendres. 

She had no doubt that a logical interpretation of her actions would be that she was going insane. People who hear voices are not usually entirely sane. It was interesting that Simon considered the possibility that she was going insane, but pursued a paranormal explanation instead. She hadn't stopped to realize just how much she trusted Simon to understand on faith alone. Looking suddenly at Mulder, she hoped he understood that the trust she shared with Simon didn't diminish the trust she shared with him. Mulder nodded sadly. His lips mouthed the words, _I understand._ Once again, she felt anchored by the bond they shared that apparently could withstand anger, misunderstanding, and even death. 

"I guess I can understand why you didn't tell me," Simon said slowly. 

Shaking off the sadness she felt whenever she acknowledged how much she missed the living Mulder, Scully sensed that Simon was being less than honest, but what could she say? She lied badly and she knew that if Mulder hadn't tripped Simon's trap, she would have continued to resist telling him. Just because the world hadn't come crashing down around her ears, it didn't mean she thought this confession was a good idea, nor did she feel comfortable with the idea of sharing Mulder. Even as that thought formed, she caught herself and ruefully admitted that she felt rather jealous that Simon was having almost no trouble accepting Mulder's existence as a ghost, whereas she still occasionally balked at the idea after nearly six months.

In a rare flash of insight, she realized that there was enough jealousy to go around. It had never occurred to her that just as she resented receiving accolades for work Mulder helped with, Mulder must have felt isolated watching her and Simon beginning to function as a team and receiving praise for work he was a part of. In truth, he was the silent partner on their team and likely to remain so. Scully felt a bit guilty as she realized she had been so wrapped up in her own anger that she had never considered how Mulder must feel. Perhaps that explained the sadness she had been feeling from him for weeks now. It must be hard for him to walk among the living, but be unable to interact with them. Mulder, despite his decision to isolate himself in the basement, was a very people-oriented person. 

Maybe jealousy was too strong a word, but having lived in Mulder's shadow for three years, she could understand how he must feel. He didn't deserve this, she complained silently to whatever saint handled cases like this. Mulder couldn't help being brilliant, intuitive, and passionate. In spite of their differences, against all reason, he had always treated her as an equal. Even more importantly, he had trusted her to be able to hold up her end of an investigation without holding her hand or hovering nearby just in case. While his impulsive dashes into the unknown had irritated her, she now realized that in an odd way, they demonstrated his complete ease with her. From the little she had gleaned of his brief partnership with Krycek, she realized that those abrupt dashes were simply a part of who and what Mulder was. She had been given no special treatment because she was a woman. Mulder treated her no differently than he would have treated a male partner, except with one major difference -- Mulder trusted her.

Scully came out of her musings to hear Mulder's voice. "Right now, you have a more important problem to consider," Mulder said. 

Simon looked confused as he was apparently startled out of his own musings. Scully gave Mulder a resigned look as she realized he was about to give Simon his theory behind the recent accidents.

"Someone is killing off Scully's team." Mulder gave Simon a serious look before turning to Scully with a slight tilt of his head and that raised eyebrow that suggested she fill Simon in on the missing pieces. That was so typically Mulder -- explode the bomb under an unsuspecting officer, then expect her to explain why the bomb went off. 

"Mulder, there is no evidence to support your contention that Agent Thomas' death was anything other than a tragic accident," Scully protested automatically. "However, I'll concede that the death of Agent Gowers is rather suspicious." Scully knew that her position was weakening, but she found it hard to believe that a ghost would need to go to all this trouble to kill.

"Well, A.D. Skinner apparently believes it, or did at 2 a.m. this morning," Simon offered cautiously, looking from Mulder to Scully and back again. His voice lacked its usual firm confidence and sounded almost tentative. Scully appreciated the trepidation he must be feeling about jumping into what was apparently an ongoing argument. She had no intention of making him feel like a third wheel, but she didn't have any experience in facilitating a harmonious working relationship between the ghost of her former partner and her current partner. She liked and respected both men and suspected that anything she tried to do would just end up hurting one or both of them. Being held in checkmate exasperated her. Her instincts told her to fix the problem, but nothing sprang to mind as a viable solution.

"I'll admit, I'd feel better if I didn't feel I was being guarded by a terrier," Simon continued with a chuckle. Mulder looked puzzled, while Scully nodded her appreciation of Simon's jest. For just a moment, she realized that she and Simon shared connections that Mulder was simply not a part of. She wondered if there would always be these moments when one of her partners felt isolated, and conceded that there would.

Responding to Mulder's perplexed look, Simon added, "A.D. Skinner assigned Agent Ayo to protect me. Ayo is about five-feet, eight-inches tall and thin as a rail. I know he was top of his class, but...." Simon stretched to emphasize his tall, wiry frame. Mulder grinned and Scully knew he was remembering how Parrish's bulky linebacker body completely dwarfed her as they walked into the Hoover Building.

"I think this is someone's idea of a joke," Scully replied tersely. It was bad enough to have a bodyguard, but the idea that someone thought it was funny to give her Parrish, while assigning the diminutive Ayo to Simon was intolerable. That Mulder seemed to be amused by the situation didn't help.

"Poor Skinner. He probably just grabbed the first two names of the top agents he has on file and didn't stop to think of how it would look. I wonder who Delacontrari got?" Mulder said with an amused twinkle in his eyes. Scully felt her mouth twitching into a smile despite her irritation. Simon looked startled for a moment, then relaxed with a slow grin.

Scully was debating telling Simon about the flowers sitting in the forensics lab when she caught a look from Mulder. Simon had turned to his desk and was setting up for the day, apparently determined to show that he was at ease with a ghost hovering about. She noticed his shoulders were stiff and he wasn't quite as nonchalant as he wanted her to believe, but he was trying.

Walking towards her, Mulder spoke in a low, clear voice. "Remember, he can only hear me if I want him to. I need to talk with him alone, if you don't mind," he continued. Suspicious, Scully wondered what was so important that Mulder couldn't share it with her. Mulder was probably going to enlist Simon's help with his ghost theory and didn't want her rational explanations to interfere with his proselytizing. That was unfair, Scully rebuked herself. Mulder had cleared out plenty of times when she indicated she needed to speak with someone alone. The memory of his accusing words still stung. She didn't own him and he'd had no right to accuse her of trying to monopolize him. It wasn't beyond reason that Mulder would use her refusal to give him time to talk with Simon as evidence of his contention. She wasn't going to give him that satisfaction. She'd show him.

"Just promise me that I'll get equal time to persuade him that there's a reasonable explanation for the deaths." Scully mouthed the words as she nodded her agreement. To her surprise, Mulder looked completely confused, as if she'd changed the topic without giving him warning. As she watched him flounder for a moment, she realized that whatever Mulder wanted to talk to Simon about, it wasn't about the case. Squelching a sense of guilt for misjudging him, Scully reached out and lightly touched his arm. As always, the cold ate into her bones, but she felt him hum slightly. They touched rarely because of the cold, but she sensed that Mulder needed those moments when he connected to her. 

"Simon, I need to run a couple of errands before Skinner's meeting. I'll meet you up there," Scully announced casually as she grabbed a note pad and pen and headed for the door. Simon gave her a startled look, then nodded, while looking uncertainly at Mulder, who was still standing by her desk, a half-visible shadow.

"Thank you," Mulder whispered, then hesitated for a moment before continuing so softly that she almost missed his words as she opened the door. "He's hurting, Scully."

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

As he watched Scully leave, Mulder experienced a moment of doubt about his plan to talk some sense into Simon. Guilt was something he had a vast amount of experience with and he was beginning to suspect that Simon was not going to relinquish his guilt over Mulder's death easily. Still, he had to try. The memory of Simon brooding alone in this office on a cold Sunday afternoon compelled him to try.

"Agent Mulder...." Simon began in a small voice.

"If you're going to apologize, forget it," Mulder interrupted abruptly as he materialized to a semi-solid form. Simon winced and Mulder realized he wasn't exactly reassuring him. "I meant it when I said I wasn't mad at you. Yeah, right at first, I was, but this whole scenario wasn't supposed to happen. Don't ask me how screw-ups like this can happen, but apparently mistakes can occur."

Simon looked doubtful and kept his eyes focused on the papers he was holding. Noticing the tiny shivers he was attempting to repress, Mulder stepped back until Simon was on the far fringes of the cold radiating from his opaque form. Until Simon got a little more used to him, Mulder figured it would be better to give him something to focus on when they were talking.

"Listen, Simon, I don't want you wallowing in guilt over this. Scully needs you. Yes, I'm jealous, but I think we both can agree that keeping her safe is our first priority. Maybe we can work from there to an understanding, I don't know. Let's not push things." Mulder deliberately allowed some of his resentment and jealousy to leak out in his voice. Simon was too intelligent to accept platitudes. He'd give him the blunt facts and let him work from there.

"Sounds fair," Simon concluded after thinking over the matter. "I'm not your favorite person, but I don't have to worry about you looking for revenge, is that it?"

"Something like. If we put Scully in the position of having to make a choice, I don't think either one of us would like the outcome. There are problems to being a ghost that you're not ready to hear yet. Just trust me that it's complicated and tricky beyond belief. I'm still learning and I don't want to jeopardize Scully's belief in me by being a prick." Mulder gave Simon a rueful grin. To his relief, Simon attempted a smile in return.

"She's rather stubborn, isn't she?" he asked tentatively. 

"You have no idea, but if you can win her trust, there's no one better to guard your back. She might not believe in what you say, but she'll believe in you," Mulder said slowly, remembering the odd mix of doubt and trust that made up their partnership.

"But you...." Simon started, then stopped, fumbling for his words.

"I'm dead, Simon. There's a limit to how much I can do. I can give advice, I can intervene, within limits, but Scully needs a live partner, and that's you. Trust me, if there was a way that guilt or brooding could change the past, I'd have done it long ago and we might never have met." Mulder fought for patience. Simon was being difficult, but probably no more so than he'd be himself if the situation was reversed. 

Simon sighed. "I never thought the day would come when I'd be sitting in the X-Files office talking to a ghost. Somehow it sounds better in the stories than it does first-hand," he said with a sad smile.

"On that we can agree," Mulder replied, trying to get some sense that he had made some progress. Simon looked up at him, then literally shot out of his seat.

"Oh shit! Skinner will have my butt," he muttered as he grabbed a folder and bolted for the door. "Sorry...." he added just before he ran for the elevator.

Mulder nodded as he remembered how sharp Skinner's tongue could be whenever he was late for a meeting. Simon was about his height, if not a bit taller, so if he ran all the way, he'd slide in just in time. Mulder had the path to Skinner's office timed down to the second. Scully was probably pacing impatiently, but at least she'd blame him rather than Simon.

Taking the easy way, Mulder simply thought of the closet inside Skinner's office and materialized there a second later. He'd wait until everyone was assembled, then quietly join the meeting in a far corner, making sure to stay completely invisible. Skinner was proving to be more sensitive than he expected, so Mulder had learned to pick a distant corner and eavesdrop. He watched Skinner usher in Delacontrari and Scully, then wait for a moment while Simon skidded into the doorway. Two unfamiliar agents were already seated at the table waiting. Mulder assumed they were the other members of the team Skinner was putting together to investigate the mysterious deaths of two agents. It promised to be a long, and highly informative meeting, from Mulder's point of view. Making a soft sound directed to Scully, Mulder whistled to let her know he was present. She gave a barely perceptible nod as she sat down. Simon swept the room with his eyes before sitting down, as if wondering if he was lurking about. Mulder wondered what Skinner would think if he realized that his most troublesome agent was not only still around, but was actively involved in this case. One day he might reveal himself to Skinner, but now Skinner had more important things on his mind and Mulder didn't want him distracted from keeping Scully and Simon alive.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

"Agents Scully, Ambercrombie, Delacontrari, these are Agents Franklin and Hopkins. I've assigned them to this case." Skinner wasted no time on pleasantries, although he paused to give the assembled agents time to exchange nods of acknowledgment. Agent Scully's expression told him that she was controlling the urge to tell him to go to hell. Affronted and irritated came to mind as apt descriptions of her mood. She caught his eye and left no doubt in his mind that she was going to dispute his decision that the deaths of Agents Thomas and Gowers were not accidental. For a brief moment, Skinner wondered if this was how Agent Mulder felt whenever he offered an impossible theory and found his partner's skepticism glaring back at him. Skinner wished he had Agent Mulder's knack for making a totally implausible theory sound almost reasonable. All he had to go on in this instance was a gut instinct that these deaths were not accidents. His instincts could be wrong, but he'd rather face the humiliation of overreacting than lose another agent. 

"Sir," Scully started, but the stern shake of Skinner's head stopped her in mid-sentence.

"Agent Scully, you will be given a chance to speak, but not now," Skinner said firmly. He had no intention of losing control of this meeting. Scully's objections could wait until he had laid all the evidence on the table. For a moment, he felt the test of wills between them as Scully bristled before giving him a stiff nod of acceptance of his terms. She relaxed, marginally, as she made it obvious that she would hear him out before ripping his theories to shreds. Oddly enough, her combative attitude aroused his competitive instincts as he decided how best to present his case.

"Agent Franklin, what can you tell me about Agent Thomas' death?" He turned to the tall, sandy-haired man sitting ramrod straight in his chair. Even sitting down, Agent Franklin managed to convey the impression that he was standing at attention. Skinner learned the hard way that appearances were deceiving. There was a streak of eccentric intelligence in Franklin that took off in surprising directions in unorthodox cases. Skinner felt that no one should be able to look so innocent while blatantly breaking the rules as Franklin managed. He suspected it had something to do with the classic profile combined with baby-blue eyes that made it difficult to believe in the duplicity clearly being practiced.

"Sir, I went over the autopsy report and found nothing to indicate that foul play was involved. The scene of the accident had been cleaned up, of course, but there didn't appear to be any way an assailant could have approached Agent Thomas without his knowledge or without being seen by one of the neighbors," Franklin reported in a relaxed style that hovered just on the edge of sounding smug. Scully allowed a small smile to appear as if her doubts were being validated. Skinner wasn't so sure. He knew Franklin and whenever he got that smug tone to his voice it meant that he was about to blow apart someone's pet theory. He had given Franklin this assignment at two in the morning. From his report so far, Skinner suspected that he hadn't gone back to sleep.

"However, I did talk with a neighbor early this morning. Apparently this neighbor left his house at the same time Thomas did. He saw no one in the vicinity, but his description of the accident was odd. The accident report states that Thomas slipped on the ice and fell backwards, hitting his head on the brick steps and dying instantly. This neighbor states that just before Thomas fell backwards, his head snapped forward. Perhaps it means nothing, but I found it odd, nonetheless," Franklin offered with the look of a man on the trail of a very elusive clue.

To Skinner's surprise, it was Ambercrombie who spoke up. He had been primed and ready for Scully to leap in, but other than an "I told you so" look, she remained silent. 

"Were there any pebbles or small rocks on the steps?" Ambercrombie asked sharply. His distracted look vanished as he pounced on the clue Franklin offered. The question was odd, but it apparently had some meaning for Franklin.

"Damn," Franklin swore as a glowing smile of satisfaction slowly spread across his face. "With the back of his head crushed in, and a logical explanation for the accident, a few stray pebbles in the debris of his skull could be easily explained, especially if the killer used the same kind of pebbles Agent Thomas had by his stairs."

"It was just a thought," Ambercrombie offered, but he seemed relieved that his suggestion wasn't as far out as he feared it would sound. "It would explain why Frank didn't try to save himself."

Skinner tried to make the connection Ambercrombie and Franklin were making and came up empty. To his relief, Scully was looking lost, while Delacontrari and Hopkins had the look of men who didn't have a clue where the conversation had gone.

"Gentlemen?" Skinner prompted, hoping the two broadly smiling men would remember to let the rest of them in on the secret before he had to openly confess that he had no idea what they were talking about.

"Sorry, sir. It's an idea from a mystery novel. Someone could have used a slingshot to kill Thomas. That doesn't explain why he fell backwards instead of forwards, but it does explain the head motion described by the neighbor and why a gymnast like Thomas made no effect to break his fall," Ambercrombie explained. Then he started, looked around the room with a harried expression before relaxing with a sheepish grin. Scully followed his sweep of the room with one of her own, but Skinner noted that her expression was exasperated. When she realized he was looking at her, she forcibly relaxed and gave her partner an approving nod, although the smile was a bit strained. 

Skinner pondered the dynamics of what just happened and filed them away for later consideration. Something odd was going on. He'd noticed that Scully often had a distracted expression on her face these days. An unwillingness to pry into her grief had kept him from inquiring if everything was fine, but perhaps it was time for a paternal chat from her supervisor. Barging into the emotional state of his agents always made him uncomfortable, but it was part of his job. Maybe Scully was ready to talk. Something had been bothering her for the past few months. Hopefully it was just adjusting to life without Mulder, but if it was something more, then it was time he knew about it.

For the first time, Delacontrari looked shaken, as if he suddenly realized that the threat was real and not just his supervisor's over-active imagination. Hopkins was growling something under his breath. Skinner suspected that he'd gone back to sleep and had barely started his investigation this morning. Franklin stole a march on him and now Hopkins must be wondering how to explain his lack of progress without looking like a slacker. Hopkins' contacts with the D.C. police would make him invaluable in this case.

"Agent Hopkins, I know that the D.C. police are technically in charge of the investigation into Gower's accident, but have you been able to find out anything?" Skinner offered Hopkins a loophole. 

"Not very much. It will be several days before the examination of the car is complete, and the blood work is still being processed, but the pathologist I talked to indicated that the blood alcohol level was well below legal limits. He suggested that Gowers might have had a glass of wine or a beer with dinner, but was not in an intoxicated state when he got behind the wheel."

Skinner nodded. Hopkins was a good agent, albeit on the slow, methodical side. He'd turn over every stone before advancing a theory, which was why Skinner had assigned him to oversee the investigation into Gowers' death. 

"Sir, I understand that two deaths in two days is stretching coincidence a bit far, but nothing in either death strongly suggests murder," Scully offered, stepping into the debate with only the barest hint of a challenge in Skinner's direction.

"Call it gut instinct, Agent Scully. Agent Franklin has supplied a possible means for murder in Agent Thomas' death. Agent Gowers was sober at the time he drove his car into a light pole at nearly . . . " Skinner glanced over at Hopkins for the exact speed the D.C. police had calculated Gower's was driving.

"Eighty miles per hour, sir, on a rain-slick street," Hopkins supplied without having to check his notes. He made a startling contrast to Franklin, a lot like the diminutive Scully did with Mulder. Hopkins was a short man, built like a boxer, with only the barest hint of an accent that suggested origins deep in the heart of Texas. 

"Exactly. Unless Agent Gowers either took leave of his senses or abruptly decided to commit suicide in a messy, spectacular fashion, then I believe it's reasonable, in the light of Agent Thomas's death, to consider the possibility of murder, until the investigation turns up a mechanical problem with the car," Skinner replied firmly. He had no intention of stifling debate, but he wanted his position clearly understood.

Scully startled, then glared at a spot over in the corner before her mouth tightened in a scowl. Skinner glanced over and saw nothing there except a bedraggled tropical plant. Now there was an X-File. Six months ago the plant had been a healthy, leafy specimen, the pride and joy of Kim's green thumb. Now, despite all the loving care Kim lavished on it, the plant was gradually shriveling up and dying. He didn't have the heart to simply tell the janitor to cart it away, but he saw no reason why Agent Scully should take offense at the poor thing. Lately she appeared to have developed a particular distaste for the plant since he often saw her glance over at it with varying degrees of irritation. Skinner shrugged off the temptation to believe that her glares were killing the plant. 

"So far as we can tell, the only connection between Agents Gowers and Thomas is the Bryson case. Agent Franklin, I want you to do a thorough background check on Bryson. Find out if there's anyone who might be willing to conduct a campaign of revenge on his behalf." Skinner waited for Franklin's nod before continuing. Before he could marshal his arguments for the next hurdle, Scully interrupted.

"Sir, this morning I delivered to the forensics labs two floral bouquets that appeared in my apartment. There was no sign of forced entry and my apartment manager denies letting anyone into my apartment. The first bouquet appeared on Saturday afternoon, the second one appeared on Monday afternoon," Scully offered in a clipped, chilly tone. Skinner got the impression that she was volunteering this information under protest, but from Ambercrombie's startled expression, this was the first time he'd heard about the flowers.

"A warning?" Ambercrombie asked cautiously, his eyes narrowed in worry as he considered the implications.

"An announcement," Franklin offered with a sick, angry glare as he stared down at his notebook. Skinner wondered if he'd run into a similar sick mind before. It was probable considering the anger he was barely controlling. "The killer's telling you he's going to kill one of your people before he does it." Franklin's tone was cold as ice. "So we have advance warning. When you get the next batch of flowers we'll know that the next hit is being planned." Mixed in with his anger, Franklin was trying rather unsuccessfully not to look eager. Skinner understood the mix of emotions. On the one hand he was furious that anyone would target his agents like this, on the other hand perp's who liked to advertise were usually easier to catch. Hopefully they could put an end to this killing spree before he lost Ambercrombie or Delacontrari. The idea of losing Agent Scully sent shivers down his spine. If anything would bring Mulder back from the dead for revenge it would be he lost Scully through carelessness.

"I'll assign someone to watch Agent Scully's apartment. Agent Scully, notify me immediately if you receive another flower arrangement. Gentlemen, I want this man caught. Agents Franklin and Hopkins, if you require more manpower, ask. I'm putting this case on high priority. Until we have more information, however, I want Agents Delacontrari, Ambercrombie, and Scully to return to their normal duties. You will continue to have protection and I'd appreciate it if you didn't make their lives any more difficult than you have to."

Skinner looked at the assembled agents. Scully refused to meet his eyes, but she seemed to be a lot less certain in her belief that he was over-reacting. Delacontrari looked nervous. Skinner suspected that he realized that his name was probably next on the killer's list. He was too good an agent not to consider that the killer would save Scully and her partner for last. 

"Agent Delacontrari, stay in the building today. I'll assign you a driver to take you home and request that Agent Smythe accompany you inside and remain inside your house. He'll be relieved at midnight by Agent Witherspoon. I know this is inconvenient, but this killer is clever and I don't want to give him any openings to exploit. Agent Ambercrombie, for the moment, I'm leaving Agent Ayo on duty, but as soon as more flowers arrive, I will also assign a second agent to you." Skinner made certain that his tone left no room for debate.

"Any questions?" Skinner saw lots of uncertainty, but everyone appeared to understand the situation, even if they didn't like his precautions. "Fine. Dismissed."

As he watched the agents file out of the room, he considered asking Scully to stay behind, but decided she had enough to worry about. When he was alone, he leaned back in his chair and pressed the heel of his hands hard against the side of his head, trying to relax the tension. He hated losing agents under his command. Each time, even with an accidental death, he felt as if he should have done something to prevent it. Even with Mulder's death, he felt the aching sense that it shouldn't have happened and the lingering feeling that it wasn't his time.

To put it bluntly, he missed Agent Mulder. This case would have fascinated him. As odd as it sounded, Skinner missed Mulder's brusque resistance to bending his neck to authority. At least with Mulder he always knew where he stood. Skinner suppressed a sigh. He wasn't a sentimental man, but he wished he'd taken the time to tell Mulder that he had respected him for being willing to stand his ground and hold to his beliefs even in the face of ridicule and official reprimands. Now all he could do was try to honor the memory of an honorable man; one of many comrades lost over a lifetime who few would remember.

Shaking off this line of thinking before he began reviewing all his past mistakes and misjudgments, Skinner resolutely pulled up the reports from the Bryson raid. There was nothing in the rulebook that said he couldn't use his years of experience as an agent in Violent Crimes to help in the investigation. Maybe he'd see something everyone else had missed. It was worth a shot.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Without waiting for Scully and Simon, Mulder headed straight for the basement. The meeting had given him a lot to think about, not the least of which was Scully's growing irritation with him. He had merely whispered the word 'flowers' to her as a reminder when it seemed she might be reluctant to contribute that somewhat vague piece of evidence to the pot. The irritated glare he received in return surprised him and he needed time to analyze the situation. He'd prompted her many times before when they were facing Skinner, but back then he'd had a smile or a reassuring nod to take the sting out of his words. Now, all she had to rely on were his words and they were so small a part of their former complex layers of communication that they were almost ghosts themselves. He felt the vague sense that he was on the trail of something extremely important. This familiar feathery twitch in his mind warned him that the incident in Skinner's office was a vital piece in a puzzle he needed to solve. As far as he could tell, it had nothing to do with the case at hand.

Mulder gave brief thought to lounging back at his old desk to think this through, but the desk really wasn't his any longer. It now bore the unmistakable stamp of Scully's domain. In fact, now that he considered the matter, there was very little of his own presence left. His passion lingered in the files, those inexplicable, unexplained cases that threatened the foundations of conventional science, but somehow over the past six months the sense that he'd always had of being home was fading. This was Scully's office now; hers and Simon's. 

It was odd, but despite having to dodge Simon while remaining invisible and reticent, Mulder had always felt that this office was the one place where he could still feel alive. Now, it felt different than it had even an hour ago. Another piece to the puzzle, but Mulder had no clue what the puzzle was supposed to look like. All he had were random pieces he was expected to put together. He'd worked with less as a profiler, but at least then he'd had tangible evidence to use as a foundation.

Hearing the elevator door open, Mulder paused and sensed two heartbeats coming down the hall. Apparently Scully, or more likely Skinner, felt that placing the agents assigned to protect Scully and Simon on the next floor was sufficient. Scully's rhythm was branded on his memory, and he was slowly beginning to recognize Simon's even when he was in a crowd. Remaining invisible would probably be the best course of action until he could determine Scully's mood. She never liked being proved wrong. Skinner had been blunt enough to ruffle her feathers. She wasn't accustomed to running headlong into the brick wall Skinner could throw up in front of a fast-moving theory. 

"Simon, I don't care what Dorothy Sayers created for one of her mysteries, the fact remains that no one saw a stranger with a slingshot and there's no evidence to support your theory of murder. In Gowers' case, I'll concede that foul play is possible," Scully said grudgingly as the two of them entered the office. Simon didn't look convinced and the combative gleam in his eye suggested that he had not yet begun to fight.

Scully was fighting her usual rear-guard action against an unwelcome hypothesis, but it was obvious she was running out of arguments. Listening to her reminded him poignantly of their many arguments over evidence of their senses versus hard evidence that could be submitted to a court of law and which was more valid. He'd enjoyed those arguments because her objections, her resistance to his theories, made him think, forced him to justify his beliefs and organize his arguments.

Taken separately, Agents Thomas' and Gowers' deaths could be nothing more than accidents and the flowers showing up in Scully's apartments a hideous practical joke, but the three together with the Bryson raid as the link made the accident theory extremely untenable. Scully was a master of denying what she saw if it didn't fit in with her preconceived notions, but she was beginning to loosen up. The fact that she could accept his existence as a ghost reassured Mulder that she was open to extreme possibilities. Unfortunately, she seemed to feel she had to fight every inch of the way before she'd concede that she was dealing with something that wasn't easily categorized or classified under known rules.

"Well, I think someone should have checked the scene a bit more carefully and not just taken Thomas' death at face value," Simon asserted stubbornly.

"It wouldn't have helped," Mulder chimed in as he slowly coalesced into a charcoal-gray opaque form. Simon nearly jumped back out the door, but he regained control of himself after a couple of shuddering breaths. Mulder chided himself for not giving sufficient warning. Scully simply went to her desk and sat down with a shake of her head. Mulder wished he could detect whether there was an undercurrent of exasperated amusement in the way she looked back and forth between him and Simon, but her expression was unreadable. 

"Why?" Simon asked shakily as he carefully edged towards his desk while keeping a wary eye on Mulder. Mulder realized that conditioning Simon to his abrupt appearances and contributions wasn't going to go quite as smoothly as he had optimistically hoped it would. The first flush of excitement over having his theory proved right was fading into wary apprehension about having to cope with a full-time ghostly presence looking over his shoulder.

"Agent Thomas had a gravel-filled gutter-garden beside his steps. A stray pebble or two would never be noticed." Mulder looked disgusted. "Good theory, though. I never read the Lord Peter books, but Sayers was considered a good writer. Anything is possible, including a hidden slingshot sniper." Mulder hesitated. He had more information to add, but talking about it might be painful for Simon. It would also resurrect the disagreement he and Scully had over this case. 

"In any event, nothing can ever be proved in regards to Agent Thomas' death," Scully interjected after shooting Mulder a quelling glance which he took as a silent order/request to remain silent about his conversation with Thomas' ghost. Mulder considered his options and, as much as it galled him to withhold vital clues, he gave Scully a curt nod to indicate his acceptance of her terms. He wanted to understand what was going on before he deliberately walked into a major confrontation. Normally he wouldn't mind, but he couldn't get rid of the feeling that he was standing on very shaky ground that might disintegrate under feet at a wrong word.

"That doesn't mean I can't keep hoping," Simon added stubbornly, but with a shy smile that seemed to unbend Scully a bit. She nodded her understanding of his need to find someone to blame. 

"For the moment, let's let Franklin and Hopkins conduct their investigations. If an accomplice of Bryson's is out there, then let's try to make it as difficult as possible for him to reach us," Scully offered. If her tone was a bit more strained than normal, Mulder knew how much it was costing her to play it safe. She hated being watched over, either by over-protective partners with a penchant for getting them embroiled in government conspiracies, or by no-nonsense agents with direct orders from Skinner to keep her alive.

Simon looked plaintively at her, no doubt remembering the diminutive Agent Ayo assigned to protect him, but nodded his acquiescence, albeit with a heavy sigh. Mulder could swear he heard a muttered "I hate paperwork," from Simon before he pulled a file off of a large pile of folders on his desk.

"Simon," Scully started, then hesitated as Simon looked up eagerly. "Let's use this time to go through the backlog files and decide whether any of them are worth looking into," she said, although from the expression in her eyes, Mulder was fairly certain that wasn't what she'd started to say. Was his presence inhibiting her from talking with Simon? It hadn't in the past, but he could read the subtle signs Scully was giving him that clearly said that she wanted him to find something to do elsewhere. Well enough. It might not be a bad idea to stake out Scully's apartment full-time. Mulder wanted to catch the flower deliverer and pry some answers out of him. One of the really nice things about being a ghost was that the suspects couldn't cry 'police brutality' with any expectation of being believed, he thought with a certain satisfaction. 

"I'll go stake out your place in case your mysterious florist shows up again," Mulder said after making sure that he was focusing his voice for Scully's ears only. He was fading into a pale gray mist as he spoke. "I can't do much here without starting a lot of very unwanted rumors," he added disconsolately. 

After checking to see that Simon was occupied, Scully nodded and mouthed the words -- "be careful." Mulder gave her a grin and a thumbs up before fading completely. It was tempting to remain for a few minutes and reminisce over the past when he and Scully would spend a comfortable afternoon debating cases and whether the FBI was really interested in ghosts and things that went bump in the night, but he had things to do, and indulging in a fit of nostalgia couldn't change his situation. Besides, he was looking forward to putting his unique talents to work on this case. Other than a brief fling at Halloween, he'd been a most well-behaved ghost. Now, if his suspicions were correct, he might be the only one who could solve this case. 

In the time it took him to think of Scully's living room, he was there. Most likely he was facing a long, boring afternoon, but he was tired of being one step behind Scully's intruder. This time he intended to be on the spot when the flowers arrived. This time the suspect was going to get the surprise of his life, Mulder vowed as he settled into a comfortable position as a vague, formless gray mist. At least patience seemed to be one of the built-in perks of being a ghost. Time could literally have no meaning if he chose to ignore it. All he had to do was wait and sooner or later he was going to get some answers.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

"Scully?" Simon asked tentatively, hesitant to break the companionable silence. For nearly an hour, he had unsuccessfully attempted to focus his attention on sorting through the files Scully passed over to him, but his mind refused to focus. The Bryson case was too perplexing a mystery to ignore, and Mulder's reappearance as a ghost was entirely too mind-boggling to just set aside. He recalled his grandmother's advice never to go looking for things that go bump in the night and wished he'd remembered this before he laid out his ghost trap. He'd been so excited by the prospect of snagging proof of a paranormal event that he hadn't thought through what he'd do when he caught it. Now he was face-to-face with the disconcerting realization that the man he'd accidentally killed was still hanging around as a ghost. Perhaps there were some things better not brought out into the light, he thought ruefully as he fought the resurgence of guilt which had grown too familiar over the past six months. The problem was, guilt was now mixed with the pride and pleasure of working on the X-Files. Fairness was rarely a part of life. However, despite the feeling that he had come out of the tragedy last July far better than he deserved, Simon knew he would fight to keep the place he'd begun carving out for himself.

Mulder didn't seem to be around -- the office was free of that odd tingling sensation he'd been feeling off and on for months. This could be a good time to try to talk to Scully about the case, but he would feel better getting completely out of the office, perhaps to one of the local cafes for lunch where he didn't have quite so many reminders of Mulder hanging around. He wanted to ask Scully if she knew why Mulder had come back and that sort of personal question might be easier to ask if they weren't sitting in the midst of so many memories of Mulder's crusade. Simon believed Mulder when he said it wasn't about vengeance. Besides, he doubted if Scully would be a party to that sort of subterfuge. She might still be a bit uncomfortable with him, but they seemed to be beginning to establish a comfortable working relationship. Recalling some of their recent cases, Simon began to wonder how involved Mulder had been in their cases. That could make what he wanted to talk about awkward, but he wanted to clear the air. She needed to know that she could trust him to keep the secret. Aside from the issue of trust, he had to admit that even if he was inclined to broadcast the news, it would be a fast track towards a psych evaluation considering his near breakdown in July. Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome was entirely too convenient a label to stick on him and re-route him to the safety of a desk job.

Looking over at Scully to see if she'd heard him, he saw that she was engrossed in a thick file. From her appearance, she was completely unconcerned by the knowledge that she was on a clever murderer's hit list. Simon envied her sang-froid. Personally, he wanted to be out and doing something, anything, to make sure that whoever was carrying out Bryson's last wish was stopped before he had to bury another friend. Agents Hopkins and Franklin were good agents, but it was *his* life and the life of his partner on the line. At least Scully had an ace in the hole the murderer couldn't predict. Simon chuckled at the thought what an angry ghost could do to anyone trying to harm Scully. It would probably make for an interesting autopsy report. Maybe he'd do some digging in the back files later and see if a case of murder by ghost ever made it into the X-Files.

"Hmmm," Scully murmured absently, not taking her eyes off the report. 

Simon considered making some flip comment just to see how long it would take to sink in, but decided that wasn't exactly how he wanted to start a serious and somewhat delicate discussion.

"Why don't we go get some lunch? I need some air and you look like you could use a break," he suggested casually as if he had nothing more serious than food and escape from paperwork on his mind.

"Skinner said...." Scully paused, then got what Simon had learned was her stubborn look -- her jaw set just short of the clenched teeth and her eyes took on a faraway expression, as if she was looking through him. Simon wondered what she was fighting -- his suggestion or Skinner's restrictions.

"Hey, he didn't say we had to starve. It will do our bodyguards good to get some exercise; it must be pretty boring just sitting up there in the hallway. Besides, I imagine they won't object to some food. Pietro's is close enough and anyone who tries to kill us in a restaurant frequented by FBI and Secret Service agents is going to get a very big surprise," Simon offered with an evil grin that finally got a chuckle from Scully. He was beginning to learn how to gauge her moods, although he knew he wasn't anywhere close to understanding her mood shifts.

"It's not fair," she said, prompting a startled look from Simon who was trying to figure out where the conversation was going. "Why do I always get stuck with the men who can eat anything and never gain a pound?" she asked, looking at a point somewhere over and above Simon's left shoulder. Simon glanced behind him before he could stop himself and for a brief moment considered apologizing until he caught the sly smile twitching at Scully's lips. Wetting his forefinger, he drew an imaginary line in the air.

"Well partner, shall we go kill a cow? I'll take the meat, you can go for the dairy products. If Ayo and Parrish are real good, we might even share," Simon replied as he got up and grabbed his coat. Ingrained habit tempted him to hold her coat for her, but it had taken only one time to cure him of that particular gallantry. She had apologized for the glare almost immediately, but the memory of her ice-cold blue eyes stayed with him. He had to keep reminding himself that she was his partner, not a lady -- however odd and impolite that sounded.

Ayo and Parrish were standing alert and ready by the time the elevator deposited Simon and Scully on the main floor. Simon glanced around, but aside from a couple of folding chairs, he could see no evidence that told him how they had amused themselves while their charges were safely tucked away in the basement. Simon was grateful that Scully had managed to bully the two agents into staying upstairs. Now that he knew about Mulder, he suspected her insistence was due to a fear that Mulder might materialize at the wrong moment and her own personal distaste at being guarded than from any confidence in the security of the basement office.

"Pietro's," Simon announced as they passed by the two agents who nodded. Ayo gave him a smile and a subtle thumbs up. Parrish's expression never shifted from impassive professionalism. Simon recalled that Ayo had a reputation as a prankster, but was also considered one of the best hand-to-hand experts in the Bureau. He knew next to nothing about Parrish, but supposed he was top of the line since Skinner had assigned him to guard Scully. It had taken Simon awhile to realize how protective Skinner was of Scully. A.D. Skinner was very good at masking his moves, but Simon had gradually realized that their backup always seemed to include some of the best agents on hand. Simon wondered if Skinner knew about Mulder. He could add that to the list of questions he wanted to ask Scully about. 

It appeared that very few people knew that Mulder was still around as a ghost. Suddenly some of the rumors and talk he'd been hearing around the Bureau made sense -- the unexplained drafts, files shifted slightly out of position, and the odd sense that someone was watching them. He'd never thought about a ghost as the explanation, but it made sense now that he knew Mulder was the ghost. Mulder must have a greater degree of restraint than he would have, because he hadn't heard that any of his old tormenters were suddenly having accidents or losing important files. Simon had a short list of people he'd like to haunt and he doubted if he'd be very polite about it. 

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Despite the early hour, Pietro's was crowded. Simon gave Scully his order while he hunted down a booth somewhere near the back of the café. By deft maneuvering, Parrish managed to snag a table about fifteen feet away - close enough for observation, but certainly not close enough to overhear a conversation, not with the noise level in here, Simon thought with a certain amount of satisfaction. He had no intention of letting anyone else in on his plans, at least not until he talked them over with his partner.

"OK, Simon, what's up?" Scully asked bluntly when she finally wormed her way through the maze of chairs and tables to their booth. "Why are we eating at one of the noisiest and most crowded cafes in downtown D.C. when I know we both brought lunches?"

Simon repressed the urge to shuffle his feet and resolutely kept his urge to apologize limited to a small shrug. Once Scully was seated, he relaxed and fiddled with his straw for a moment to collect his thoughts.

"Where do you want to start our investigation?" he asked calmly, aware that his oblique question would irritate as well as intrigue Scully. He wanted her full attention and that meant arousing her curiosity. He wished he had Mulder's deft ability to deal with people. Especially his ability to squash patronizing idiots, Simon admitted to himself. 

"Assistant Director Skinner has assigned Franklin and Hopkins to investigate the deaths of Thomas and Gowers. I don't recall him suggesting that we assist in any way, other than to cooperate with our bodyguards," she added with a disgruntled glance over at Ayo and Parrish.

"It was our case first," Simon insisted, hoping he didn't sound petulant. "We spent over a month building a case against Bryson and nearly died trying to arrest him. I think that gives us priority. Besides, it's my life, and I want to do something besides sit around waiting for the killer to strike." Simon knew his frustration and annoyance were showing through, despite his best intentions to present a calm, reasoned case for their involvement.

"And what can we do that Franklin and Hopkins can't?" Scully asked curiously. To Simon's relief, she seemed more curious about his motives than irritated by the fact that he wouldn't let this case rest.

"Well, for one thing we aren't conventional. For another, we have some very unconventional resources at our command," he suggested. He watched as Scully's expression went from curious to stony to a resigned sadness. He knew even obliquely touching on Mulder bothered her, but if he was still hanging around, then it was highly likely that he wanted to help. Simon wanted to hunt ghosts, not become one. Mulder might not be that fond of him, but Scully was next in line after him and Simon was willing to bet Mulder would be willing to do just about anything to protect Scully.

"Simon, don't...." Scully began in a harsh whisper, then pulled back and gestured for him to continue. Her expression was unreadable, but Simon sensed that she was controlling an urge to tell him to shut up and drop the entire subject. At least she was hearing him out. Simon was grateful. He understood how hard this was for her, but now that he knew about Mulder, he saw no reason not to simply accept him as a fact of life in what was turning out to be a very unique partnership. He might be uneasy knowing that the man he'd killed was peering over his shoulder, but somehow he also felt relieved knowing that Scully had extra backup.

"I'm not only referring to the visitor this morning. I know you have contacts outside the Bureau; I think I've heard you refer to them as the Gunmen. Let's use them. Scully, whoever killed Frank and Gowers went about it in a deliberately obscure fashion. That suggests either someone with a very convoluted mind, or else someone who couldn't take direct action. It's just a theory, but what if Bryson came back with one thing on his mind - vengeance?"

"Ridiculous. Ghosts don't ... " Scully stopped in mid-sentence as she fumbled for words. Simon didn't laugh. He suspected it was difficult for Scully, who prided herself on her skepticism and her scientific rationality, to admit that in this one instance science was wrong. Habit prompted her to deny the existence of ghosts, but she had undeniable proof that at least one ghost did exist and she was too good a scientist not to realize that if one could exist, then so could others. She was caught between a rock and a hard place. Having maneuvered himself into that position more than once in the past, Simon sympathized. Hearing their names called, he left Scully to her quandary and plowed his way to the counter to pick up their lunch. 

"So, you're proposing that Bryson is responsible for the deaths?" Scully asked after several forkfuls of a Greek salad that looked more sinfully rich than his own meatball sub. It wasn't fair that a bowl of leafy greens should look more appetizing that a thick meatball drenched in tomato sauce housed between thick slices of Italian bread, Simon thought as he considered the possibility that salad could be a dessert.

"It's possible."

"Ghosts don't need to knock people down stairs or jam accelerators. They also aren't worried about covering their tracks," Scully commented with a deadpan seriousness as she looked at him over a bulging forkful of olives and feta cheese.

Simon felt his jaw drop for a moment as he rallied valiantly to the notion that Scully was actually taking his theory seriously. To his further surprise he saw that Scully was actually chuckling at his confusion.

"Simon, I may not believe in 99.9% of the phenomena Mulder paraded in front of me, but I've seen things I can't deny. I won't risk your life or the life of Delacontrari by insisting on maintaining strict scientific rationality in this case. I also agree with you - I have no intention of just sitting around waiting for whoever is killing off our team to act. What do you suggest?" Scully asked seriously, wiping the smile off her face, although her eyes still twinkled a bit.

"Have you ever heard of giving a guy a left turn signal before you do that?" Simon asked with a good-natured grumble, pantomiming a heart seizure. "OK, I'll take your word on how ghosts are likely to behave, although something tells me that I'm this close to something very important, but I'm not seeing it. OK, if not a ghost, then maybe Bryson had a close relative who's carrying the idea that blood is thicker than water to extremes."

"Perhaps. Agent Thomas did a complete rundown of Bryson's family connections. I'll take a look at his notes and see if anyone shows up who has motive and opportunity," Scully offered.

"Scully, did it ever occur to you that the Bryson case just felt odd? For nearly thirty years he lived a normal, if somewhat rowdy, life as a welder, then suddenly he starts butchering complete strangers. He didn't even fit the profile of most serial killers. Bryson had minimal social skills, true, but his intelligence was less than average and there was no evidence he ever cracked a mystery book. Suddenly he started committing crimes that left the forensics teams swearing. I never found anything that could explain what sent him on cleverly planned rampage against total strangers." Simon paused for a moment. The frustration of trying to track a killer who left almost no clues behind was coming back. Bryson might be dead, or not if his theory was correct, but his annoying sixth sense was insisting that the key to the current case lay in the past. 

"I want to take a closer look at his history and see if I can find out what made him change from a weekend bar brawler into a serial killer," Simon said earnestly. He wanted some answers. Once they'd identified Bryson as their killer, the whys of his abrupt departure from normal life hadn't seem quite as important as finding him and putting an end to the killings.

"Simon, I'm not admitting a thing as far as your theory that a ghost is involved, but we'll attack this case sensibly. I'll talk with my friends and see what they can dig up about Bryson and his family. The M.E. in D.C. owes me a lunch, I think I'll collect and see what I can find out about Gower's death. I'm not entirely convinced there is a case, but I learned from Mulder that there are times you have to move on faith," she added softly, then got the resolute look in her eyes that told Simon that Agent Scully was about to move mountains. Whatever had been bothering her had been shoved aside. Simon just hoped he could keep up. Scully had a tendency to plow straight ahead without veering once she made up her mind. 

"I'll go back to Frank's and take a look around. His wife is away at her mother's, so I won't have to try to explain to her that we think Frank was murdered." Simon hesitated, not sure how to go about asking his next question. 

"What?" Scully asked with an amused smile. "You have that worried beagle look. Just blurt it out. I might not like the question, but I won't bite your head off," she assured him.

"If I need to talk to... you know," Simon added lamely, glancing around to make sure Ayo and Parrish were still well out of earshot. 

"Oh," Scully said quietly. "Just go to the office and call him. It's a place he can get to easily and unless he's busy doing something else, he'll show up. Just remember, he's still the same; being a ghost hasn't changed his willingness to believe in any and all possibilities," she added with a fondly rueful look that reminded Simon of his mother talking about some of his more disgraceful youthful escapades. "However, he's still the best profiler the Bureau ever had and he was as puzzled by Bryson as you were. I think you two will get along far too well. Now, we better get back to work before Ayo wears out her watch."

Simon glanced over at Ayo who tried to look nonchalant, but Simon suspected she wanted them both back in the safety of the Hoover Building. With a nod to Ayo to indicate that they were leaving, Simon handed Scully her coat and shrugging into his, he let Scully lead the way back to their office. He felt the excitement of a mystery hit him along with the protein surge. Suddenly the long afternoon looked much more interesting that it had an hour ago. A trip to the evidence room seemed in order. He doubted if Skinner would approve a visit to Bryson's house, even with Ayo in tow, especially since he wasn't supposed to be working on the case. However, perhaps he could talk Jackson, who supervised the evidence recovery team, into going back and looking for certain things. As they walked back to the Hoover Building, Simon ran over the list of possible incentives he could offer Jackson. His resources were limited, but he could be very creative when he had to be. The answers lay in Bryson's past, he was sure of that. Now all he had to do was figure out where to start looking.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Mulder had no idea how long he'd been dreaming in the gray fog when he sensed someone approaching the door to Scully's apartment. As a ghost, he'd discovered that he could feel sounds. Perhaps he was sensitive to vibrations in the air, but it was more than that, although he lacked the words to describe exactly what it was like to feel a sound. He once spent a rather exhausting twenty-four hours trying to analyze how he could hear or see anything since he lacked the physical equipment necessary to register sounds or sights. If anything, his senses were heightened to the point of physical pain. Loud sounds tended to make him vibrate like a tuning fork. He supposed there was a logical, even rational answer, but Scully was having enough trouble adjusting to his existence as a ghost without trying to explain to her why he sensed things when his senses weren't supposed to work. 

Materializing just slightly until he was the consistency of a thin mist, Mulder moved over to the corner of the room, out of direct line of sight from the doorway. The afternoon light had faded under a thick cover of clouds even though it was only three o'clock. Making a quick check, Mulder was relieved to note that Scully was still at work. At this distance he couldn't make out any details, just that she was safe and in familiar surroundings. He wasn't sure how this ability to determine Scully's approximate location worked, but he was very grateful for it at times like this.

As he waited for the footsteps to get closer, Mulder thought he heard thunder rumbling overhead, until he realized that the pattern was too regular. Taking his attention off the approaching footsteps, he realized that what he was hearing was sound of someone beating a hypnotic rhythm on a large drum. Along with the drumbeat, he sensed something else -- an odd cloyingly bitter-sweet scent in the air that made him shiver -- the death-house smell of funeral flowers. Whatever was coming down the hall carried with it a darkness of the soul that triggered his urge to flee back into the gray fog for safety. 

Repressing the urge to retreat, Mulder held his ground and considered the situation. When the footsteps stopped in front of the door, the drum rumbled deeply in a rapid series of beats, then abruptly stopped, as if someone had laid a stilling hand on the drumhead. If he'd been alive, Mulder knew he'd be hyperventilating by now. The drums were a warning to any who could hear, but warning of what? 

Barely loud enough for him to hear, a voice started chanting in some language that seemed vaguely familiar, but slipped past his memory before he could identify it. Whatever it was sounded like a ritual of some sort. Mulder felt the air thicken around him as if he'd been swallowed up in a hot, humid Southern night. He smelled fetid water and the oppressive scent of thick greenery. The sense that something evil was coalescing grew stronger as he watched a thin tendril of darkness slither under the door frame and coil just inside the apartment. Abruptly the darkness transformed itself into a serpent and lashed out in his direction. Without thinking, Mulder leaped backwards through the Christmas tree. Hissing with annoyance, the serpent fell to the floor and swung its head from side to side as if searching for him, tasting the air with its tongue. 

Carefully staying out of range, Mulder wondered what kind of snake could sense a ghost, then realized that whatever else this thing was, it certainly wasn't natural, although it appeared to be intelligent. Feeling considerably aggrieved that none of his copious records had ever mentioned ghost-hunting snakes, Mulder continued to dodge the snake as it tracked him around the room. His curiosity was aroused. What was this thing?

The voice on the other side of the door was beginning to sound annoyed. The chant had a bite to it that seemed to sting the air around the snake, causing it to flinch and hiss angrily. Pulling the darkness back around itself, the snake disappeared in a haze of black smoke that shrank down, then burst up and out in the shape of a bobcat that looked like it had come straight from hell. Flames flickered on the tips of its fur and its eyes were red burning coals. It snarled as it saw him. The voice fell silent and Mulder felt a strange pinging sensation as if someone was searching for him. He began to realize that the situation was beginning to get out of hand.

Mulder backed up hastily through the kitchen wall and began giving serious thoughts to bolting for the safety of his gray fog bank. The cat seemed amused by his efforts to escape as it followed him through the wall. That answered one question -- the thing could follow him. He didn't know if it could track him across town and he didn't want to lead it to Scully. For now, he'd play cat and mouse with it while he tried to analyze what it could do. 

Unfortunately, he had no idea how to handle this thing, much less the person who was controlling it, but if this was what was bringing Scully the flowers, then he wasn't surprised no one remembered seeing anyone. Whoever he was had power and knew how to use it. The snake/cat thing could be a familiar, a spirit in service to a sorcerer, but something kept nagging at him that the language the voice used was a vital clue. He knew that when he had time, no doubt he would remember what seemed so familiar, but right now he was too busy trying to avoid coming into contact with whatever this thing was. It was gradually dawning on him that if it was this determined to catch him, then it might be able to hurt him.

The air in the apartment continued to grow denser as if it intended to squeeze him into nothingness. If he had needed to breathe, he'd be on the floor at the mercy of that demonic cat. The chant had changed, and Mulder suspect that some spell was being cast designed to incapacitate whoever was inside the apartment. Whoever was controlling this spirit-beast apparently thought he was dealing with a living person. Mulder knew that gave him a slight edge if only he knew what to do with it. 

Seeing the cat spring for him, Mulder dodged, but the cat literally changed direction in mid-leap and hurtled right at him. Frantically dodging, Mulder felt the cat's hind claws rake his shoulder as it flew past. His arm became molten fire, burning so hot Mulder was surprised the rest of him wasn't going up in flames as well. Falling to his knees in pain, Mulder tried to dematerialize only to discover that the fire was holding him in place. Helpless, he stared over at the cat who was righting itself after colliding with the wall. Mulder could swear there was a scorch mark on the wall where it had landed. As if aware that it had won, the cat paced slowly towards him, soft-footed and graceful, but with a dreadful hunger in its eyes. Mulder braced himself, determined not to give in to the pain. There had to be a way to fight this thing. A strong belief in a deity would be really helpful right now, but Mulder suspected that a last-minute conversion after death wasn't going to work. Actually, what he'd really wanted was a sorcerer powerful enough to banish this thing. A name popped into his head, and without thinking he called out to a spirit who had befriended him once and might just know someone capable of kicking this cat back to hell.

"Chester!"

The cat stopped, cocked its head to one side as if startled to hear him speak, then resumed its slow approach. So much for that wish, Mulder thought, as he rapidly ran through all the banishment rituals he'd ever read about and tried to decide whether he had time to try even one of them, or if they'd even work for him. The chanting outside the door continued its incessant beat against his senses.

"Man, it sure took you long enough," an exasperated voice from somewhere behind him. "What are you doing here, baka? You have no business with this man. He's protected."

Startled by the sound of another voice, Mulder risked a look over his shoulder. Standing just behind him was a thin boy, dressed in an old T-shirt and ragged jeans. His fists planted firmly on his hips, Chester Bonaparte glared at the cat, who rather comically began to scoot backwards rather hurriedly. Chester stepped forward and the cat retreated until its rump was square against the door. The voice outside fell silent with a rattling cough. 

"Go away, both of you. I don't want to hear of you bothering this man again. The lady you got some call on, but I warn you, the loa are angry. Don't be making them more angry." Chester sounded reproving, but he gave Mulder a wide grin before going back to glaring at the cat who disappeared into a coil of black smoke and fled out under the door. The man outside yelped sharply and cursed a moment in what Mulder now recognized as Creole before he heard footsteps making a hasty retreat down the hall.

Chester turned with a satisfied smile and walked over to Mulder and knelt down look at his burning arm. Chester looked solid. Mulder even thought he could detect a heart beat, although it could be a drum for all he knew in his confused state. According to official records, Chester had died in a riot before their first meeting, but he looked and felt as solid as any living person. Apparently Vodoun ghosts operated under a whole different set of rules, but for once his curiosity was overwhelmed with waves of pain spreading out from his arm. Freed of the necessity of watching the cat, Mulder collapsed on the floor and tried not to moan as the fire in his arm continued to burn.

"You are one strange dude mixing in with bakas with no training. Bakas are nasty, but they can't touch someone protected by the loa. They owe you, so you're protected. Guess they forgot to tell you," Chester said with a sly grin, as if scoring a point off someone Mulder couldn't see. "Take this, it will keep the baka away." Grabbing Mulder's burning arm, Chester pressed a silver coin and chain into his hand. Cold seeped out from the coin until it felt like his arm had been plunged into ice water. Mulder could feel the cold smothering the fire and cooling the pain. Shuddering with relief, he looked at the coin that he knew he shouldn't have been able to hold in this barely materialized form. He was barely a shadow, and, normally, solid objects just flowed right through him. The coin rested in his hand as solidly as if he were fully materialized.

"It's OK. It goes where you go, at least until the loa figure they've paid off their debt. Now, I got to be going. Try to stay out of trouble; that's one bad dude out there," Chester suggested.

"Wait," Mulder asked, desperate to talk with someone who apparently knew more about being a ghost than he did. Chester shook his head with a sad expression and began to fade.

"Thank you," Mulder called after him. It might have been his imagination, but he thought he heard Chester laugh. For some reason, the boyish laugh lifted his spirits. Chester had been an engaging little imp who gave them vague hints and warnings in exchange for bribes of french fries and a Big Mac two years ago when they investigated mysterious deaths at a Haitian detainee camp in North Carolina. Scully still refused to talk about the case, but Mulder knew she had answers with no questions and wasn't happy about some of the answers.

Mulder shuddered in his equivalent of a sigh and stood up. So far, the afternoon could be called a draw, but only because he'd had outside help. From what Chester said, Scully would be getting no such help. He found that a bit unfair. She'd been as instrumental as he had in bringing Colonel Wharton down. At least they now had more information about the person stalking Scully's team. As far as he knew, Bryson had no connections to Vodoun, but for some reason, someone was using Vodoun magic to leave death warnings for Scully. The only motive he could come up with right now was revenge, but Bryson was dead and had been a loner with no immediate family or friends. Who cared enough about him to methodically stalk the team responsible for his death? 

Mulder was exhausted and still shaky from his encounter with the . . . baka, he thought Chester had called it. At this point, he doubted if he could even manage a materialization, but he had to warn Scully that either Simon or Delacontrari was in immediate danger. From the pattern of the killings so far, he'd be willing to guess that the next target was Delacontrari. Simon was Scully's partner. That meant his death would be a hard blow and would probably be saved for last. 

Thinking of the X-Files office, Mulder felt himself slide slowly towards it. He felt like he was moving through half-congealed Jell-O. Always before, the transition had been instantaneous, but apparently movement through the ether required energy, and his reserves were just about tapped out. 

He had no idea how long it took, but eventually he found himself hovering in a spot just behind Scully's desk. She was busy at her computer, reading over autopsy reports, if he remembered the format correctly. Apparently something had happened to make her start taking the case seriously. Mulder felt a twinge of jealousy that Simon could convince her where he couldn't. The jealousy wasn't fair, but Mulder was too tired to make the effort to squelch it. He'd deal with it later. Right now Scully needed to be warned before he fizzled out entirely.

"Scully," he said softly as he tried to materialize. All he could manage was a pulsating mist that barely resembled a human form. Realizing that he simply didn't have the energy, Mulder quit trying and allowed himself to float in nothingness.

"Mulder? What happened to you?" Scully asked with a worried frown.

"I met the guy who's been bringing you flowers. Next time, I want the cavalry nearby," Mulder griped, hoping Scully would be reassured by his usual sardonic manner. She didn't look convinced, but Mulder sensed that she was at a loss to know how to assess his condition. Taking his pulse or calling the paramedics obviously was out of the question. Dr. Scully was obviously frustrated. Under other circumstances, Mulder might have been amused.

"Who was it?"

"I didn't get a chance to see. I was rather busy trying to avoid being obliterated by some sort of evil spirit. The guy is using Vodoun sorcery, or at least that's what Chester said," Mulder added as his coup-de-grace. 

Scully's expression went from skeptical to stunned disbelief to worried doubt in what Mulder regarded as her classical head-on collision with inescapable paranormal phenomena. She remembered Chester only too well and had never managed to come up with a scientific explanation for him.

"Are you sure?" she asked hopefully. Mulder suspected she was trying to decide if ghosts suffered from delusions.

"Very. He appeared and banished the thing that was chasing me all over your apartment before telling me that you were in danger. The suspect never entered the room, but I think I know how he's been getting into your apartment without a key. I definitely smelled the flowers. You better warn Delacontrari that he's in danger."

"And how am I supposed to have come by this information?" Scully asked tartly. 

"Fuck. Just tell Skinner that you're worried about Delacontrari and let him do the rest," Mulder suggested. It was rather lame, but the best he could do on short notice. It was a real pain being dead. 

Scully nodded with a doubtful expression. As concerned as Skinner was about this case, Mulder suspected that even a hint from Scully that the suspect was on the move again would get some action without many questions. 

"Where's Simon?" Mulder asked. He was alarmed at how faint his voice was becoming. Scully was cocking her head as if she was having trouble hearing him. Damn. Apparently even speaking from nothingness required energy and he was just about tapped dry.

"Trying to get a look at Bryson's place. He thinks we're dealing with a ghost," she added, with a slightly exasperated note in her voice.

"I don't think so. Whoever was outside the door was alive. We need to talk. Why don't you ask Simon to come to your place tonight? It's not safe here with the cleaning staff moving around. Maybe if we all share what we know, suspect, or even guess, we might gain an edge on this guy."

Mulder felt himself dissolve even as he tried to muster up enough energy to finish his request. His last conscious memory was seeing Scully's worried face nodding. He fell into the gray fog and floated without thought or form until he slipped into his natural dreaming state as he rested. 

As his ectoplasm recharged, he reviewed everything he'd ever read on Vodoun. The possibilities were endless, but where did Bryson fit in? Nothing in his profile suggested a connection with Vodoun, and as far as Mulder knew, Vodoun sorcerers didn't just randomly pick a target. Perhaps they didn't know as much about Bryson as they thought they did. The voice outside the door was using a Creole dialect, but something about that voice seemed familiar, as if he'd heard before. No matter how hard he tried, Mulder couldn't pin it down, but he knew the mystery would nag at the back of his mind until he managed to locate the correct memory or else ran into the person behind the voice again. Considering the power evidenced by the attack on Scully's apartment, Mulder definitely preferred the first option. He had no idea how to counter a sorcerer who could command an animal spirit. 

By the time he had regained his equilibrium, he felt Scully moving closer. He didn't sense any danger surrounding her, but her emotions remained closed off to him. They were going to have to talk about this, but now was not the time. They'd worked together before when one or the other was upset or even exasperated by the other. There was no reason to remind Scully that he was now far more sensitive to her emotional shifts. Her moods were as clear to him as the weather was to her. Of course, the drawback of this new sensitivity was that now she had far fewer clues on how he felt. Mulder wondered if they would ever manage to be in sync for more than a few moments. 

To his relief, Mulder sensed that Scully wasn't alone. It would probably be easier on Simon if he waited until Scully called him. Simon was doing a fine job of coping, but Mulder had plenty of experience with conditioning Scully to his abrupt manifestations. Besides, remaining invisible would give him a chance to come up with an explanation for the afternoon's events that wouldn't push the limits on Scully's credibility. She was making remarkable progress but still had a tendency to dig in her heels when faced with an unexpected paranormal event. Unfortunately, there was no way to get around the fact that the appearance of a Vodoun sorcerer and a baka in the case meant that they were caught up in some very heavy-duty paranormal activity. 

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Whatever differences Simon and Scully had over the case, they had either settled them or at least had agreed to set them aside. Mulder watched them walk up the sidewalk in easy camaraderie despite their serious expressions. It looked like Scully was seething over something and Simon was trying to calm her down. He didn't look like he was having much luck, but when Scully got mad, very few people could talk her down. Mulder watched the concerned look on Simon's face and tried to be glad that Scully had a partner who cared.

_I am glad,_ Mulder assured himself and wondered when he would fully believe it. Being dead hadn't magically made navigating through complex and contradictory emotions any easier. In fact, he ruefully admitted, the temptation to actually act on some of his impulses was much stronger now. 

"Is he here?" Simon asked cautiously, his voice barely above a whisper as Scully opened the door. Mulder repressed the urge to smile. Even though he knew Simon couldn't see him, it hardly seemed fair to laugh at his nervousness. Simon was uneasy, but was trying very hard not to show it. Mulder could hear the pounding of his heart clear across the room. Mulder knew only too well the vast gulf between wanting to see the paranormal in person and finding yourself face-to-face with the stark, cold reality of a ghost. He had yet to meet anyone who could see a ghost without being reminded of their own mortality. Simon was doing very well, all things considered, Mulder decided.

_If Scully ever decides she's tired of me hanging around, maybe I'll go haunt Cancerman and disturb his serene belief that he's in control,_ Mulder reflected. _Besides, I'd be performing a public service if I goaded him into a heart attack._

Despite his need to talk to Scully about what he'd learned, he waited for her to call him. It would be easier on Simon than for him to just suddenly appear out of thin air. 

"Probably. He wanted to talk to us here, so I doubt if he's very far away," Scully said. "Just relax," she added kindly. Her tone was still a bit sharp, but Mulder noticed she was making an effort to calm down. Whatever had happened apparently had nothing to do with Simon, or with him, Mulder decided. 

"Mulder?" Scully called out softly with one of her half-smiles that Mulder liked to believe were reserved just for him. 

Mulder whistled a few notes, saw Simon startle, and gave him thirty seconds before slowly materializing in a corner several feet away. Simon looked pale, but managed to give him a nod before blindly feeling for a chair. He almost fell into it, never taking his eyes off Mulder as if he was afraid that if he looked away, Mulder wouldn't be there when he looked back.

"Hi," Mulder greeted them as he settled into a semi-opaque form perched on the back of a chair. Simon shuddered then seemed to hunch before relaxing with a deep sigh. "Just try not to think of me as a ghost," Mulder suggested in a reassuring tone as he risked solidifying to a more solid form. Scully shivered as his cold aura touched her, but merely stepped back a few paces and selected a chair just out of range. Simon still looked uncertain, but the fact that Mulder was now more or less solid, seemed to reassure him.

"It's time we talked. We're running out of time and I have no desire for company on this side," Mulder commented without a flicker of a smile. He was serious. He hoped Scully was ready to accept that they had a case and not simply a set of coincidences. 

"I'm listening," Scully replied briskly as she slipped into her professional skeptic mode. Simon gave him a hesitant nod. His eyes were still a bit wild, but Mulder could hear his heart rate begin to slow down.

"What did Skinner say?" Mulder asked abruptly, taking Scully by surprise. This obviously wasn't a question she was expecting. The angry flush that reddened her cheeks spoke volumes. 

"He's putting extra guards on Delacontrari," Scully snapped as her lips flattened into a thin, angry line. Mulder waited. Simon shifted uncomfortably in his chair, but remained silent. Scully glared at both of them. After a long pause, she spit out the reason for her anger. "Assistant Director Skinner has placed a surveillance team outside. My neighbor across the hall has been asked to vacate her apartment while the team installs cameras and listening devices."

"Skinner's worried about you, Scully. He's simply skipping some intermediary steps in order to make sure you're safe," Mulder said carefully. He'd have been as upset as Scully if he discovered he was being placed under surveillance without his knowledge, but he could understand Skinner's concern. "I'm almost willing to place bets that there's a team assembled outside Simon's place and a more visible presence around Delacontrari's house. Skinner's lost two agents already; he's not going to lose more because he didn't take precautions."

"He should have informed me," Scully snapped. 

"And if you'd objected, what was he supposed to do then, leave you to the mercy of this killer?" Mulder asked bluntly. Scully's eyes turned to stone, but he felt her breath catch as his blunt response forced her to stop and think about something other than her own resentment. "What would you have done in his place?" he added relentlessly, asking her to consider the situation from Skinner's point of view. He sensed Simon holding his breath in the corner, and hoped that he'd stay out of this for just a few moments more. Distract Scully from having to face cold facts and she might find a way to rationalize her anger.

Scully opened her mouth to reply, then shut it again. She was mad, but she was also having to consider the fact that Skinner was just doing his job.

"How would you feel?" she snapped back at Mulder.

"Angry as hell," he admitted somberly, then spoiled the effect with a rueful grin. "But at least he hasn't gone quite so far as to shoot you to protect you," he reminded her with a smile.

Scully blushed, then let out her breath with a whoosh and gave Mulder a stern glare that barely hid the twitching of her lips. "You do what you have to with unruly partners," she retorted seriously, before allowing herself to relax with a reminiscent smile. Simon's wild-eyed stare was back as he looked back and forth between Scully and Mulder.

"I thought that story had hit the water cooler gossip circuit ages ago," Mulder said, surprised that Simon hadn't heard the story. It had been number one on the water cooler gossip circuit for months. "She was right, she had no other choice, but she didn't give me one either. She simply did what she had to," he admitted. 

"It's not quite the same, but I take your meaning," Scully conceded grudgingly. "I still intend to talk with Skinner about this, but for now, I'll accept that he's doing what he thinks is best." 

From her expression, Mulder suspected that Skinner was going to have to do some fancy talking to convince Scully that placing a surveillance team around her apartment did not imply that he felt she was unable to defend herself. Mulder knew how touchy Scully was about being considered the equal of any male agent despite her small size. She might have the heart of a lion, but Mulder wanted a few very large predators handy just in case size made a difference.

"OK, that means I don't take any midnight walks outside unless I'm completely invisible," Mulder said with a mischievous grin. _Now wouldn't that be an interesting anomaly to explain on a surveillance tape?_ he said quietly to himself. 

"Just behave," Scully chided with a soft chuckle. "Well, at least my neighbor is getting an all-expenses-paid stay at a very nice hotel. I wonder how Skinner is going to justify that in his budget?" she pondered.

"Office supplies?" Simon offered blandly. In response to the puzzled looks from Mulder and Scully, he attempted to explain. "Well, how else does the military cover up its more exotic research? So, Skinner needed some very expensive paper clips this month."

Mulder chuckled and gave Simon an approving nod. Scully tried not to laugh, but finally gave in to a broad smile. Simon tired to hold onto his innocent expression, then gave up and smiled back. Mulder gave him high marks for knowing just when and how to relax the tension in the room. 

"OK, Mulder, what happened here this afternoon?" Scully asked abruptly, pulling on her professional demeanor to indicate that it was past time they got down to business. 

That was fair enough. As he recalled, his brief summation to her had been rather short on details and long on requiring her to take him on faith. That she had trusted him enough to go to Skinner and warn him that the suspect was on the move reminded him that no matter how far apart their positions might appear to outsiders, there was a strong bridge of trust they could rely on.

Simon looked at Scully with a startled inquiry in his eyes, before turning to look at Mulder expectantly. Obviously, Scully hadn't passed on any part of his report except the request to meet at her place. Not that he could really blame her. Considering the bare facts he'd relayed, if she had tried to fill Simon in, she'd be facing a barrage of questions she wouldn't have been able to answer. Having to admit that she didn't know the full story always had irritated her.

"Simon, how open-minded are you?" Mulder asked carefully. 

Simon shrugged. "I don't believe in Santa Claus, but the jury's still out on the Tooth Fairy," he replied with a perfectly straight face. Scully's cough sounded suspiciously like a stifled chuckle.

_Just what I need -- a straight man,_ Mulder grumbled to himself, although he was relieved that Simon could joke at a time like this. Simon sounded as if he was willing to entertain extreme possibilities as long as they came in small doses.

"I came back here, hoping to catch whoever was delivering the flowers in the act. Around three o'clock, I felt . . . I mean I heard a noise," Mulder continued hastily. There wasn't time to get into the physics of ghosts, but from the sudden jerk of Simon's head, he caught the slip. Mulder could almost feel his urge to interrupt with a question. After a long pause, Simon swallowed and settled back down to listen. 

"When the footsteps stopped outside the door, I saw a tendril of darkness flow under the door along with a really foul odor. It assumed the shape of a snake and attacked me. Whoever was on the other side of the door appeared to be trying to control it, but that snake had one thing on its mind and that was me. Next thing I knew, the snake had become a cat and started chasing me around the room. When its claws brushed across my arm, it felt like my arm was on fire. Whatever this thing is, it can sense ghosts and seems to know how to hurt us. We dodged around the room for a bit with me on the losing end of the chase. I don't know what made me call out Chester's name, but suddenly he was here in the room. He scolded this thing he called a baka, and it fled. He gave me a charm of some sort to ward off the baka if it came after me again, but he said that Scully was vulnerable because whoever was controlling the baka had some claim on her. Then he left." Mulder watched the play of emotions over Simon's face and wondered if he realized how confused he looked. Scully was doing a bit better, but then she knew who Chester was and had never been able to explain him away.

"Questions?" Mulder asked as he concentrated on leaning back against the wall without actually going through it. Simon was doing fine, but he didn't want to push him too far.

"Why would this creature attack you?" Scully asked in a puzzled tone.

"Maybe it doesn't like ghosts?" Mulder responded with a shrug. "I don't know. I wasn't anywhere close to it since I was expecting a person to come through the door and didn't want to warn him I was here. I was barely visible, but the baka knew exactly where I was."

"Bakas are bad spirits connected with Voodoo, aren't they?" Simon asked hesitantly. 

"Voodoo or Vodoun, but yes, you're correct." Mulder gave him an approving nod. Simon apparently knew his paranormal.

"I attended a Vodoun ceremony as part of an anthropology of religion class ages ago and decided to read up on the religion. I got to know a couple of the local Voodoo priests, but I'm not sure how much of what I saw really happened or was just wishful thinking," Simon explained.

"I'd be careful before disbelieving anything. After this afternoon, I'm taking Vodoun very seriously. According to Chester, bakas aren't something the uninitiated fool with, which means that whoever was on the other side of the door knew something about Vodoun sorcery."

"Are you sure it was Chester?" Scully asked bluntly. Being dead had one advantage -- he could sense Scully's heart start to beat faster and sensed she was hoping he'd admit to a mistake, or at least a doubt.

"It was Chester."

"Who's Chester?" Simon asked curiously.

Mulder glanced at Scully who flatly refused to meet his eyes. Not surprising. She couldn't explain Chester by any rational, normal means which meant that she might have to admit he was a paranormal phenomena. She wasn't ready to concede that ground just yet.

"Chester was a young boy we met on a case involving Vodoun. He seemed to be a normal boy in every sense of the word, except that we learned after the fact that he had been killed in a riot long before we ever arrived on the scene," Mulder explained. "He had this knack of disappearing and then showing back up when he was most needed." _Like in time to save Scully's life,_ he thought gratefully. 

"So, you're telling us that there's a sorcerer able to control a minor demon going around killing FBI agents?" Simon asked incredulously.

"So far, I don't have anything to connect the person who controlled the baka with the killings, just with delivering the flowers. I smelled them, by the way, if you want more proof," Mulder said and got a reluctant nod from Scully. He suspected she still had doubts, but wouldn't talk about her reservations until they were alone. _Old habits,_ he thought fondly. It was rare that she'd tear his theories apart in front of other people; she preferred to wait until they were alone to scientifically shred his theories. 

"If there's someone using a Vodoun sorcerer as an errand boy, we don't stand a chance, so why don't we assume that the flower man and the killer are one in the same?" Mulder suggested reasonably. "The suspect was definitely alive, so we're not dealing with another ghost, thankfully," he added with noticeable relief in his voice. 

Simon looked disappointed, but rallied with only a small sigh of regret for his erstwhile theory. Scully looked torn between satisfaction that the ghost theory was out, but seemed less than happy that it had been replaced by a Vodoun sorcerer theory. 

"Scully, right now, I would prefer that we had an ordinary psycho fixated on avenging Bryson to deal with, but that baka wasn't anywhere close to being normal, plus I saw Chester. If you can explain Chester as being normal, then I'll be willing to consider that our suspect is just a regular guy. Until then, we have to consider the possibility that our suspect can control paranormal beings," Mulder argued gently, but firmly. If he gave her half a chance, Scully would find a loophole in his theory and then insist on acting as if they were only facing a normal killer.

"That would explain Frank's death," Simon said slowly. "A baka could have pushed him and no one would be the wiser. They're mostly smoke, but I seem to recall reading that they pack quite a punch." Simon stopped as his eyes got a faraway look of intense concentration. 

Scully started to speak, but fell silent at a gesture from Mulder. Mulder gave her a smile of thanks which was returned with a nod and a raised eyebrow. Except for the sparkle in her eyes, Mulder might have taken her response as exasperation, but he knew her too well for that. This was one of her patented 'You're impossible, Mulder,' looks that usually meant she was beginning to be intrigued by the mystery.

"If a baka was used, that means that the person controlling it had to be nearby. None of your neighbors report seeing anyone delivering flowers, but from what Mulder says, the man simply walked up to your front door in broad daylight. Hmmmmm. . . . Nah." Simon gave a sheepish chuckle.

"What?" Mulder asked. He didn't see anything amusing about the flower man, but he was willing to admit he was too close to the situation and too worried about Scully to see beyond the need to find and stop this killer before she got hurt.

"Sorry. The theme music to the 'Shadow' just popped into my head," Simon said with a shrug. He looked remorseful, but Mulder sensed that the idea that the killer could cloud men's minds intrigued him.

"With Vodoun, anything's possible. Colonel Wharton gestured at me and I felt like he stabbed me in the stomach with a knife. Vodoun sorcerers can do strange things with the mind, right Scully?" Mulder turned his best innocent look on her.

"That's what I've heard," Scully said slowly and reluctantly as if each word had been dragged out of her. Her official report had suggested airborne hallucinatory drugs, but Mulder suspected that she didn't believe it any more than he did. Something had happened to both of them in that graveyard and Scully was honest enough not to totally deny it.

"If we're dealing with Voodoo, then what's Bryson's connection? None of the profiles mentioned any connection with Voodoo or any other cult," Scully pointed out. Mulder recognized the shift in mood. She might not like the implications of accepting a paranormal theory, but lacking any other suggestion, then she would pursue this as relentlessly as she would a normal case.

"I'm not sure. . . ," Simon began slowly. Mulder and Scully turned to him curiously. Simon was proving to be a very useful addition to their team, Mulder decided. He had an unorthodox way of looking at things. "I was talking to Jackson, over in Evidence Retrieval, and he was mentioning that something very spooky was going on in the Evidence Room." Simon stopped short as he realized what he said and started to stumble over an apology.

"Don't worry. Fact of the matter is, I am spooky, at least now," Mulder said with a grin. "No, Scully, I haven't even been near the Forensics labs," he assured a slightly suspicious Scully who visibly relaxed. "Of course, now that you mention it, maybe I should pay them a visit." Mulder grinned, but the seed of the idea was already planted and growing.

"Mulder," Scully scolded, but not very seriously. "The lab has gone over the evidence and nothing unusual was recorded."

"Maybe not, but we have a dead man, a sorcerer, and something strange going on in a locked vault. Sounds like we have our jobs cut out for us," Mulder said with barely concealed satisfaction. He still had no idea where this mystery was taking them, but for the first time he had a trail to follow.

"I can talk Jackson into releasing Bryson's journals," Simon said. "He owes me a favor. Besides, with Bryson dead, the case is closed and the journals will just end up in storage."

"Give me the journals, Simon," Scully said. "You have to believe in sorcery to investigate it and despite what happened in North Carolina, I still have my doubts about how much of it was drugs or simple manipulation of our minds, and how much was sorcery," she said with a rueful smile aimed right at Mulder. He nodded his understanding of the distinction she was making. 

"I guess that leaves me with the sorcery end since I doubt if I'm qualified to break into the Evidence Room. Mulder, you said you recognized the language of this chant?"

"It was some form of Creole. Oh, and something else -- I smelled hot, wet vegetation, like New Orleans on a steamy summer's night," Mulder said as he tried to recall everything he felt during the brief skirmish.

"It's not much, but I know a couple of people who might be able to point me in the right direction. You mentioned a baka, Chester mentioned something about loa, and you have a pendant he gave you to protect you. It sounds as if the spirits are a bit conflicted in this case." There was a purr of satisfaction in Simon's voice. "If so, once we uncover the truth, we might have a chance," Simon said firmly. His voice was becoming more certain as if he was a bloodhound on a hot scent. 

Mulder smiled, but didn't say anything. He might have been looking at himself a year ago. _Was I ever this young?_ he asked himself wistfully. Glancing over at Scully, he saw her face twist in a spasm of grief that was gone before Simon could notice. Walking over to her, Mulder laid his hand on her arm and smiled sadly. 

"I know. I'm still here, as long as you need me," Mulder promised, directing his words for her ears only. Simon glanced over at them, then turned away as if embarrassed to be caught prying into their private world.

Abruptly, Mulder broke the silence before it swallowed Scully and him in incalculable regrets for what they had lost. "Right, I'll tackle the Evidence Room and see if I can figure out what's going bump in the night in there. If Skinner's teams can keep the killer from reaching Delacontrari, then we'll have time to. . . ." The ringing of the phone cut him off. Simon literally jumped about two inches, and Scully tensed.

"Scully residence," Scully said as she mouthed, "It's probably Skinner," at Mulder. 

Scully gave Mulder a good-natured scowl as he sidled over to hear both sides of the conversation. Trying not to turn Scully into an icicle, Mulder faded until he was barely a misty outline.

"Ah..... This will be more interesting that I expected," a man's voice breathed softly. Mulder could swear the person on the other end was purring. Scully went very still and held her breath, her face going pale with surprise.

"No more warnings, witch. Tell your familiar I won't be balked so easily next time. Blood for blood until I have my satisfaction," the voice promised silkily as the line went dead. 

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Scully slowly replaced the phone in its cradle with a dazed expression as Mulder struggled to control his anger. Tiny sparks were already swirling around him as his temper spat out tiny bits of fire from his ectoplasm. Simon stared the two of them with wild eyes as he edged cautiously away from Mulder.

"That wasn't Bryson's voice," Scully finally managed to say in a slightly shaky tone. "I didn't think to hit record on the machine," she added regretfully.

"That was the suspect?" Simon asked, startled out of his dismay at Mulder's pyrotechnics. Scully nodded.

"Shit -- Delacontrari!" Mulder snapped as he vanished.

"Mulder, wait. . . ," Scully called after him. She looked over at Simon who was pale but composed. He looked a little shell-shocked, but he appeared to be holding his own.

"I believe the caller was our suspect. He told me that there would be no more warnings. Apparently he believes I'm some sort of witch," she added in a bewildered tone.

A moment later, Mulder re-appeared looking sheepish. "I don't know where Delacontrari lives," he admitted grumpily. His brief flight into the ethereal had cooled his temper, but he was frustrated that none of his abilities were worth a damn in tracking this killer down. So far, he hadn't even been able to stop him. The baka would have taken him out if Chester hadn't intervened. 

"I think we better start keeping in close contact. Mulder, I know you can find me anywhere, but can you do the same with Simon?" Scully asked practically. Mulder wondered how she could remain so calm when he wanted to punch his fist through a wall, but he recalled that Scully always did have the knack for suppressing her emotions when she wanted to.

"I don't know. I haven't really tried," Mulder confessed. Simon looked intrigued and more than happy to be doing something, even something as trivial as playing sonar with a ghost.

"Simon, go outside and pick a spot at least a hundred yards away. I'll give you three minutes and then I'll see if I can feel your location. If you haven't heard or seen me in five minutes, come back inside," Mulder told him. Simon nodded and headed for the door. 

Scully and Mulder remained silent as they listened to his rapid footsteps move down the hall. Mulder started to speak, but Scully reached up and laid two fingers against her lips as she mouthed _later._ Mulder gave her a doubtful look -- Scully was very good at delaying conversations they needed to have. 

"I promise," she whispered with a nod to seal it. She started to lift her hand to his arm, but dropped it before she touched him. 

Mulder smiled his acceptance of her terms and settled down to wait out the three minutes. When they were up, he concentrated on locating Simon but came up empty. There just wasn't enough emotional connection to fix his position. He could sense that Simon was somewhere nearby, but not his exact location. It was a start, but they needed more of an edge.

"No luck?" Simon asked as he re-entered the apartment. "Our bodyguard detail has increased, by the way. I think Skinner is getting nervous."

"Good," Mulder growled under his breath. He wanted Skinner to be paranoid. Maybe the guards wouldn't be much use against a Vodoun sorcerer, but they were a reassuring presence in case sorcery had to fall back on simple human efforts.

"Simon, take this and see if it makes a difference," Scully said as she poured her cross into his hand. 

Mulder swallowed his protest. Scully was just being her rational self. He doubted if she placed the same importance on that cross that he did. He had worn it during her absence until it became a talisman, his unwavering hope that she would return.

This time Scully refused to meet his eyes as they waited. Restless, Mulder paced through the room, ignoring anything in his path until he was startled to find himself in the middle of the dining room table when Scully called out 'time.'

Concentrating again, Mulder felt a slight pull off to one direction. Following this thin trail, he let the tug draw him to where Simon was standing. 

"Boo," he said softly, repressing a chuckle when Simon jumped back. "It works. Come on back in."

"Mind if I have a heart attack first?" Simon asked in a shaky tone that bordered on exasperated. Mulder smiled to himself as he disappeared -- Simon was doing a lot better than he had even dared hope. Get him some more seasoning and experience under fire, and Mulder might just consider him competent enough to watch Scully's back.

"Found him. He's on his way," Mulder announced triumphantly as he re-materialized a few feet away from Scully. "He's taking this well, Scully."

Scully didn't reply, but Mulder sensed she still wasn't happy about Simon being in on the secret. At least she'd worked her way past irritation to grudging acceptance. Mulder made a note not to push too hard on this issue. Scully needed time to work out the justification for Simon knowing about him. Once she convinced herself that there were strong, valid reasons, then she'd perk up and be surprised that anyone had thought she had doubts.

"It's starting to snow," Simon announced as he came back in shaking off heavy flakes of snow clinging to his jacket.

"Mulder, if Simon continues to carry my cross, will you be able to find him?" Scully asked briskly. Mulder wanted to believe she was hesitant about giving up her cross to Simon even for a brief time, but he sensed nothing but satisfaction that a sticky problem had been easily resolved. He mentally sighed, and nodded.

"Next time, give a fellow some warning; I'm too young to have a heart attack," Simon griped with a smile. 

"I'll give you the same whistle I give Scully," Mulder said with just a hint of satisfaction that he could be just as dispassionate as Scully. He caught the brief flicker of surprise and the faint taste of irritation before Scully pulled back behind her barriers. _Good. Let her know what it's like to have something personal given to an outsider,_ he thought, aware that he was acting a bit petty, but really didn't care.

"Well, that's settled," Mulder continued, brushing through the emotional cobwebs threatening to tangle them up in issues they needed to talk about, but not now -- not until the killer was neutralized. Scully pursed her lips as if to protest, then apparently thought better of it. Mulder suspected she realized that anything she said could lead them into the quagmire of a discussion she wasn't ready for. Simon gave Scully an uncertain look, then nodded. 

"I'll contact my sources and see if I can get anyone in the Vodoun community to talk with me," Simon said. "I don't know how long it might take, but I'll stress that we have an emergency on our hands."

"Before you go, what did your friend say was happening in the evidence vault?" Mulder asked as he stretched out a hand to stop Simon. At Simon's shudder, he hastily pulled it back. "Sorry."

Simon took a deep breath before responding. "Nothing much -- just that things seem to move around. Once he walked into the vault and felt as if something was watching him. Jackson doesn't believe in anything he can't touch or see, but he's really getting unnerved by whatever is going on. He even jokingly suggested it might be your ghost, looking for the evidence that always seemed to slip through your fingers," Simon added apologetically.

Scully bristled. Mulder shook his head and gently laid a hand on her arm. She shivered, but relaxed the angry glower forming on her face. 

"It's OK, Simon. That's a relatively mild joke. Evidence usually did prove to be elusive in our investigations, right, Scully?" he asked with a reminiscent smile. Scully smiled back and relaxed. "That didn't mean nothing was out there, just that it didn't lend itself to hard evidence."

"Or to scientific validation," Scully shot back teasingly. "Simon, I can't count the number of times we saw things that could be explained a number of ways, but we always seemed to lose the hard evidence to back up either of our theories. It's just something you'll get used to in the X-Files," she warned. "I believe Mulder once asked me if I believed in extreme possibilities -- I do, but I like hard, scientific data to back up my observations," she said with a sly smile at Mulder.

"You always seemed to be in the wrong place just when the most interesting phenomena occurred -- Scully's luck?" Mulder asked straight-faced.

"Or Mulder's luck," she retorted instantly. Mulder raised his hands in acknowledgment of her reposte. 

"Simon, you start contacting your Voodoo friends and tomorrow you can ask Jackson for the journals so I can start checking them for any hint of a connection between Bryson and Voodoo. Mulder?" Scully asked uncertainly. Mulder sensed she was almost afraid to ask what he'd be up to.

"I'll head over and make a quick check of the vault tonight, then come back here. I know Skinner has put together a strong team of agents to protect you, but if we're dealing with a Vodoun sorcerer, I don't want to take any chances," Mulder explained. "Simon, if you sense anything out of the ordinary, give me a call." 

Simon nodded, albeit a bit uncertainly. Mulder wondered if he felt as if he was caught between a rock and a hard place -- literally between a baka and a ghost. He gave Simon an encouraging smile which didn't seem to help. Perhaps he needed to remember to solidify a bit more around Simon. Scully was used to talking to a semi-transparent person -- Simon still wasn't over the shock of finding out that ghosts really do exist. Mulder made a mental note to try to materialize to an opaque form when Simon was around.

With a wave and a impish grin, Mulder mouthed a promise to Scully to be back as soon as possible, then he dematerialized and followed Simon out to his car. He was pleased to note at least four agents scattered around Scully's apartment complex and two men in a car ready to follow Simon home. Skinner had obviously put this case on high priority _\-- as well he should,_ Mulder grumbled to himself. 

Once Simon was safely away, Mulder paused, thought of the X-Files office and let himself flow through the ether towards his goal. From there, he knew he could find the evidence vault, but it had been a couple of years since he'd been up there and he preferred to take the long way. Besides, walking through the Hoover Building after dark was an old habit and he was in a nostalgic mood. 

He had no idea what he was going to find once he reached the evidence vault, but the solid feel of Chester's talisman and his instincts told him that the baka was somehow involved. The Hoover Building was his and no upstart spirit was going to trespass on his territory. He was amused to find that he had a peculiar sense of proprietary protectiveness about the place. Despite the bad memories, he'd spent most of his adult life there and just about all of his after-life as well. The Hoover Building was as close to a home as he'd ever had. Whoever was disturbing the evidence room probably didn't belong there and needed to be chased off, if it could be. At least this time he'd be prepared -- he hoped.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Hoover Building  
Tuesday evening, 9 p.m.

It came as no surprise to Mulder to find several dozen offices occupied with agents busily catching up on backlogged cases. The Hoover Building took on a life of its own after dark with agents trying to squeeze a few more hours out of the day. Once, one of those lights would have been burning in the basement office he called home. Scully was a nine-to-five person who rarely stayed on after hours unless working on a case deadline. Mulder wished he could explain what she was missing, but the nightlife here had to be experienced, not explained. 

As he passed through the halls, Mulder recognized several agents who were regular after-hours workers. With the advent of computers and office printers, it was no longer necessary to bribe the copy room staff to leave the door unlocked, or to cajole the records clerks to stay just a little longer. His season tickets to the Washington Wizard's games had been hot items in the free market economy that reigned after hours, especially when convincing a lab tech to do a little unauthorized testing.

Mulder passed through the locked door to the evidence room and made a quick check for anyone working late before he risked materializing to an opaque shadow. Intellectually he knew he could do everything while completely invisible, but he still found it easier to be able to see his hands when he was working. He might be a ghost, but he still thought and acted in many ways like a living man. That would probably change as he grew more accustomed to being a ghost, but over thirty years of habit wasn't going to be overcome in just a few short months.

The vault in the back of the room appeared to be locked and secure. Wishing he could take a deep breath to prepare himself, Mulder stepped through the steel door. Since he was partially materialized, he felt himself move through the metal with a curious squelching sensation -- like Jell-O being squeezed through a vise. He couldn't decide if it was painful, but it definitely didn't feel pleasant.

It was pitch black inside the vault, but Mulder didn't need light to see. Nothing looked out of place. Scanning the closet-sized room, he didn't sense anything amiss -- certainly no stray bakas or ghosts hiding in the shadows. Still, that sixth sense of his that used to warn him that he was missing something in his analysis was going off. 

A single large cardboard box held the evidence taken from Bryson's house. Taking up most of the space was a thick leather-bound journal that felt old when Mulder touched it. The last entry was a month before Bryson's death and the entry before that was nearly six months prior. Obviously Bryson wasn't meticulous about recording his thoughts, so why keep a journal at all? Mulder felt a growing sense of unease the longer he held the journal -- it was almost as if he could feel Bryson's evil lingering in the pages. Either his imagination was going into overdrive, or else there was more to Bryson than anyone suspected. 

The only other objects inside were a small metal box and a couple of plastic evidence bags containing the diagram for the mines Bryson had laid out in the house and maps pinpointing the murder spots in his multi-state killing spree. Mulder was tempted to open the box, but he felt an odd reluctance to touch it. He had no desire to spark a major confrontation with a Vodoun spirit right here in the middle of the Hoover Building. The box wasn't going anywhere, although he suspected that it might be the focus of the disturbances Jackson reported. He made a mental note to warn Simon about it.

Checking the inventory list Jackson had compiled, Mulder looked over the contents of the box -- one leather bag containing a jade snake ring, a bottle of unidentified powder, a small bottle of whiskey, and a silver knife wrapped in black silk. Mulder was no expert, but he sensed Vodoun ritual stamped all over these items. If Bryson was involved in Vodoun, how did this escape the notice of a team of FBI agents who spent weeks pouring over the tiniest details of his life? 

At the bottom of the evidence box another plastic bag contained the trophies Bryson had taken from each of his victims. A note inside the bag listed the names of those victims and their ages. Even through the plastic, Mulder could feel the death agonies of the men and women who died to appease Bryson's rage. For an instant, he seemed to see their faces moving out from a crowd of other ghostly faces hovering around him. There were over a hundred faces forming out of the darkness like Furies seeking vengeance -- too many for Bryson to have killed, but Mulder sensed that every face was a victim and they were not at peace. Unless someone had changed the rules as he understood them, Mulder couldn't figure out why these spirits still cried out for vengeance when their slayer was dead. 

Mulder felt as if he'd stepped through the looking glass into a world where nothing was as it seemed. He had to get back and try to convince Scully that the case wasn't closed and Bryson might not be as dead as they thought. If Bryson was involved in Vodoun somehow, then all bets were off and Scully had better start believing in extreme possibilities very fast. 

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

"Mulder, Bryson is dead. I shot him myself and I've read the autopsy reports," Scully snapped in an exasperated tone. She had abruptly hung up her cell phone when he appeared and, other than saying that it wasn't the killer, she refused to reveal anything more about the conversation. Her temper was definitely raw and Mulder wished he had better news for her.

"I'm dead, but I'm still here," Mulder retorted, softening his voice with a gentle smile. He didn't even want to remember the autopsy that Scully had insisted be done on him. Her paranoia was admirable, but he still shuddered as he recalled seeing the M.E. slicing open his skull. "If Bryson is involved with Vodoun somehow, then anything is possible," he reminded her.

"You're reaching for this one, Mulder," Scully replied sharply. Mulder couldn't tell if she was angry because the case was rapidly slipping out of her control into the realms of the paranormal or because she was afraid. He wouldn't blame her if she was afraid; he was. The baka was more powerful than he was and if whoever was controlling it sent it after Scully, he might not be able to stop it. 

"I'm just asking you to keep an open mind. If I can be a ghost, then it's very possible that someone with Vodoun training might be capable of reaching out from death for revenge."

"Fine. Let's assume you're right. Explain to me what precautions I should take against a . . . a zombie?" Scully asked in a chilly voice. She glared at Mulder, obviously waiting for an answer. Mulder wished he had one to give her.

"We're not dealing with a zombie. I'm not sure what we are dealing with, but I'm about 99 percent certain the killer is alive," Mulder explained, trying to buy himself some time before he confessed his total lack of useful suggestions about defense.

"Well, I guess that eliminates holy water and a crucifix, or do you think I should call in a priest?" Scully's tone was definitely on the sarcastic side. This was a complete turnaround from the mood she had been in barely an hour ago. What had happened in that time to change her attitude? It might not be the time or place to force a conversation, but Mulder was tired of trying to second-guess her mood changes. It was possible that the killer might be using sorcery to manipulate her emotional state, to undermine her resolve. The killer certainly had had the opportunity to gather hair or other personal items during his previous visits. At least it was something to keep in mind.

"OK, Scully, I'm tired of this. What's wrong? If it's something I've done, then tell me and we can argue it out, but this constant current of resentment and anger is getting very old." Mulder saw Scully's eyes go cold and knew he'd stung her, but he barreled on without giving her a chance to interrupt.

"Ever since the raid, you've been moody and irritable. You act as if I'm imposing some terrible burden on you just by being around. Then you turn around and act as if nothing is wrong. Make up your mind -- if you want me to go, just say the word. I don't think that's it, but unless you tell me what the problem is, that's the only thing I can assume." Mulder felt tiny electrical sparks swirl around him as he kept his temper under tight control. If he could push Scully hard enough to lose her temper, she might blurt out the truth. He was taking a big risk, but either they cleared the air now, or they'd end up facing the killer divided and uncertain of each other and that spelled disaster.

"You have no right. . . ." she blustered. 

"I have every right," he interrupted as he moved closer to her. Scully shivered as the combination of cold and electrical discharges washed over her. For a moment, Mulder's heart sank as he saw fear in her eyes. Before he could relent, she literally exploded in a furious verbal assault. He'd gotten what he wanted, now he hoped he'd survive the storm he raised.

"How dare you! You walk back into my life with never a thought to how I feel trying to balance your needs and Simon's needs. I'm the one who has to cover up after you pull some bonehead stunt that nearly tells everyone you're a ghost. I'm the one who has to explain to Skinner how I know things I have no reasonable way of knowing. You drop suggestions into my lap and expect me to follow up on them like a good little agent without once considering how damnably impossible it is to justify my actions." Scully stopped to draw a shuddering breath, shaking with the effort to rein in her temper.

Mulder was tempted to give her breathing space, but they were coming close to the truth, the core of Scully's anger and like it or not, he needed to find out what was gnawing at her.

"You didn't have to follow my suggestions. I don't recall you objecting to the solve rate you're getting, either," Mulder said in an even tone. He sensed that he was a hair's breadth from the truth; the facts were beginning to sort themselves out. He was hardly aware of what words he spoke, but they struck a nerve -- Scully turned dead white.

"Damn you," she spat as she turned on her heels and stalked off. The slamming of the bedroom door echoed through the apartment. 

The missing pieces of the puzzle fell into place as Mulder saw past all of Scully's anger to the burning resentment she had been trying to bury the past few weeks. He'd been a profiler, one of the best, but he'd never found profiling Scully to be easy. Now he wished he'd taken a bit more time to try. There was mortification seething under that anger and he was partially to blame, he admitted. 

Mulder knew that if he gave her time, she'd simply bury the resentment even deeper until it curdled every moment they shared. He'd rather face the baka again, than barge in on Scully right now, but if she'd been willing to risk his life by shooting him in order to save it, he figured he owed her the same in return.

Bracing himself, he slid through the door. Scully was sitting in a chair, staring out the window, her back a rigid shield against his concern. Mulder could sense that she wasn't crying -- his task might be easier if she had allowed herself the luxury of letting down her emotional barriers. 

"Scully," he whispered softly, not moving from the doorway.

"Go away!" she hissed angrily, refusing to turn and look at him.

"Why didn't you tell me?" he asked gently. He wanted to go to her, to pull her into his arms and hold her until her icy calm shattered, but he sensed that this time, physical contact was not the answer to their problem.

"I thought you said that you'd go away if I asked. Well, I'm asking," Scully snapped in a brisk tone that trembled with rage.

"When we've talked, if you still want me to go, then I will, but I won't leave until we talk this thing out," Mulder replied calmly as he tried to soothe her anger with his voice, allowing his understanding and remorse to flow through his words.

"We have nothing to talk about."

"Then you listen while I talk. Feel free to jump in and correct me if I make a mistake," Mulder said with just a hint of regret in his voice. Scully made no answer, but her back grew even more rigid. 

"Grief can be a strange thing. You think you have a handle on it and that everything is under control, but it's like a stalking cat, always lurking in the shadows at the edge of your consciousness waiting to pounce. Normal grief is hard enough to work through, but quite unintentionally, I've made it a hundred times worse for you," Mulder admitted sadly. Scully made no sign she was listening, but at least she hadn't stormed out of the room. Mulder didn't want to have to chase her all over the house trying to talk to her, although the comic implications of that situation were almost enough to make him smile.

"I'm dead, but I'm still here," he continued, bluntly. "You never got a chance to work through your grief because my ghost showed back up and lulled you into a false sense that everything was OK again. But it's not, is it?" he asked brusquely, knowing he wasn't going to get an answer. That was fine -- at least he knew she was listening.

"I'm still part of your life, but it's not the same. You couldn't tell people that your irritatingly erratic partner was still around, giving you advice and playing the profiler. So, you continue to solve cases, with my help, but as far as everyone else can tell, you're flying solo and doing a fantastic job." Mulder paused to give a bitter chuckle. To his surprise, he saw that Scully had turned her head slightly as if to hear him better.

"It's ironic -- I've been fighting jealousy that you were getting all the attention without ever realizing the price you were paying. I felt left out. I heard the gossip that speculated whether you'd been the brains behind the X-Files and I was angry, ashamed of being angry, and jealous as hell. But all along you were the one having to bear the brunt of this new respect. It hurt, didn't it -- getting commendations for work that we shared? Resentment, need, friendship -- all boiling together in an impossible equation that had no solution. Did you come to resent me for putting you in such a false position?" 

Mulder waited for a response, but all he sensed was Scully clenching her teeth while breathing in short, harsh gasps. He could feel her anger, but was encouraged by the faint salty smell of tears edging their way out of her tight control.

"I suppose the last straw was the Bryson case. Skinner isn't going to be content with a simple commendation, is he? He's probably told you that you're going to be officially commended in a grand ceremony for saving the lives of your team. It must seem like a betrayal of your own personal standards to accept, but you can't explain a refusal without telling him the truth. You're caught living a lie and it's eating away at you, and at our friendship." Mulder heard a choked breath which sounded suspiciously like either a growl or a sob -- he was hoping for the latter.

Figuratively taking a deep breath, Mulder plunged on. 

"If you wish, I'll go away after this case is settled. I won't abandon you to whatever it is that's stalking you, but once we have the killer under arrest or dead, then I'll go and leave you to take up you life without me." Mulder felt a small sense of pride that he managed to get the words out without wavering or allowing his own grief to show in his voice. He didn't want to leave, but it might be the only way to allow Scully to move on. The offer wasn't made out of some noble sense of self-sacrifice -- it was simply the only way he knew to protect the memories they shared before they burned to ashes.

The silence stretched out between them like brittle toffee. Time passed and still there was silence, but then Mulder realized that he could hear tears sliding down Scully's cheek. Taking a chance, Mulder came over and knelt beside her chair. She shuddered as the cold of his aura hit her and gasped. As if the gasp were the final straw, a sob broke free, and then another until she was shivering and crying as she hunched over in the chair, burying her head in her hands. Without a word, Mulder gathered her into his arms and held her tight. Physical contact in this situation was a mixed blessing, but Mulder wanted to hold her; he had to remind her that in spite of all their differences he would always be there for her as long as she needed him.

For a moment, Scully relaxed against him, then she stiffened and started to push away. She stared in horror as her hands slowly pushed through him. Mulder released her and stood up. He hadn't wanted to materialize completely because of the cold effect, but now he wished he'd taken the risk. No matter how many times Scully witnessed proof that he was incorporeal, it never failed to catch her off guard. 

"Why did you come back?" Scully asked in a small voice blurred by tears, staring down at her hands lying clenched in her lap.

"I didn't have a choice, Scully. There's something I left undone that I have to do," Mulder replied cautiously, wondering where this conversation was going. "You have no idea how beautiful it looks beyond that door I can't pass through," he added wistfully. The few glimpses he'd had were almost enough to pull him from Scully's side.

"I'm so confused," Scully admitted as she finally looked up at him. Her face was splotchy, but Mulder sensed that she was reaching the calm center of the storm. "You can't be real, but you are. I can't explain you and you make my life impossible, but the thought of losing you for good tears me apart. One day you'll just disappear and I'll be left behind to lose you a second time." Scully's voice trembled, but this time Mulder sensed that it was from grief, not anger. She was finally facing the monster lurking in the closet. Whether this meant that she'd tell him to leave now, while she could justify her grief, he couldn't tell.

"It's a fucked-up situation, but what else is new for us?" Mulder asked with just a hint of a roguish smile. To his relief, Scully's eyes brightened for a moment before she shook her head as if to push away his comfort again.

"Scully, we can work this out, but we need to start talking to each other. I wasn't very good at reading you when I was alive and death hasn't given me any special insights. I'm still the same old Mulder, just in a slightly different package."

This time Scully's expression brightened at his weak attempt at humor. Mulder wasn't sure if that was a chuckle or a belated sob, but he took heart that she wasn't retreating completely from him.

"I don't know if I'll have any say in whether I leave or not, but I promise that I'll try my best to convince Gordon to give me time to say goodbye. Maybe I can apply for the position as your guardian angel. Yours could probably use a vacation," he quipped with a smile that this time was reflected by Scully's smile and an answering chuckle.

"I still don't know what to tell Skinner. Mulder, I can't accept a medal for something I didn't do," Scully argued defiantly.

"Well, if you hadn't been there and been willing to listen to me, no one would have gotten out of there alive. Your team trusted you and that's what made the whole thing possible." Mulder thought for a moment. "How about a compromise -- you go to the ceremony and when it comes time to accept the commendation, I'll be standing right beside you. Skinner will be giving it to both of us, even if he never knows it."

Scully thought over the idea, looking doubtful. "It still doesn't feel right."

"It's not a perfect solution, Scully, but you really don't have a choice right now. You did help save those lives, Scully. Why not consider it payback for all the times we were disciplined when we hadn't done anything wrong. Take it, now and we'll figure out something for the future."

"I still feel like I'm accepting an award under false pretences, but you're right -- I can't refuse. I think there's a flaw in your argument, but it sounds too good to try to find the loophole I know is there," Scully confessed with a sigh as she let her body relax. 

"Get some sleep, Scully. I'll be on guard. We'll muddle through somehow. I don't want to leave, but if you decide after this is all over that you'd be more comfortable if I maintained a certain distance, I'll give it a try," Mulder offered reluctantly.

"That's the problem, Mulder, I don't want you to leave. As many times as I've come close to telling you to go away, I've gotten too used to having you around to say the words, except when I'm mad," Scully admitted with a contrite look.

"Right now, let's just focus on taking down this killer before he kills again. You take the rational road, I'll take the paranormal road, and I'll meet you somewhere in the middle, as always," Mulder teased as he felt the tension between them seep away.

"It's a deal. Now please go somewhere else while I take a very long hot bath," Scully ordered briskly, shooing him away with her hands, but smiling.

"Sure, although if you need your back scrubbed . . . ," Mulder quipped as he hastily fled through the door one step ahead of the pillow Scully threw at him. 

As he patrolled the apartment and surrounding area, Mulder felt relieved that they'd survived one more crisis in this new relationship. He was hopeful that maybe Scully now realized that telling him about what was bothering her was ultimately easier than facing these emotional roller-coaster conversations. Of course, that implied that he had to do the same, but he'd deal with confessing his own problems later. At least they'd cleared the air for the moment and could now focus their entire attention on catching this damn killer. 

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= 

4 .a.m. Wednesday morning, December 16th

Mulder drifted through the apartment appropriated by Skinner's watch-dogs. This was his third trip around the perimeter of Scully's apartment complex with nothing to show for his vigilance except two dogs and a cat who might require serious therapy after coming nose to ectoplasm with a ghost. Mulder didn't mind the sheer boredom of an uneventful evening; it meant that Scully was safe.

In the dark hours just before dawn, something changed. Mulder became aware of a shift in the emotional atmosphere surrounding Scully's apartment. He didn't have the vocabulary to describe what he felt. It was tempting to fall back on his sci-fi movie experience and call the phenomena 'a disturbance in the force,' but it really felt more like a dramatic wind shift preceding a nor'easter. Whatever it was got his attention. Resisting the temptation to fly to Scully's side, he forced himself to take time to try to pinpoint where this change was centered. To his relief, it wasn't coming from Scully's apartment. To his dismay, it was coming from the apartment commandeered by Skinner's guard detail.

Drifting over to find out what had happened, Mulder hoped that Delacontrari hadn't become the latest victim of the stalker. That would put Simon directly in the line of fire with Scully next in line. Whoever was orchestrating this campaign of vengeance was too damn clever for Mulder's taste.

To his relief, the agents Skinner had assigned to guard Scully were angry, but Mulder didn't sense any grief for the death of a fellow agent. It was clear that someone had died, but not Delacontrari. As he watched, both agents headed out to patrol the area. Mulder appreciated their diligence, but knew that neither one of them was prepared to confront a Vodoun sorcerer.

As he trailed along after the two agents, Mulder felt a slight tug. Lacking any other way to describe it, he decided it felt as if he'd been hooked and someone was slowly reeling him in. Irritated, he fought the pull only to find that he couldn't get any traction to brace himself against it. Irritation gave way to anger, but the tug remained strong and steady. 

Whoever had hooked him better have a damn good explanation, Mulder thought as he ceased struggling to conserve his strength. He tried not to think about the possibility that the sorcerer was making sure he couldn't interfere in his future plans. Fighting a highly competent Vodoun priest was probably a losing option, but Mulder did not intend to be taken out without a major fight.

To his surprise, the tug pulled him across town to a modest complex of townhouses. Flashing blue lights signaled the presence of at least four police cars. An area marked off by yellow crime-scene tape was crowded with uniforms and FBI agents. Mulder recognized Agent Dobson who had been assigned to watch Delacontrari. To his surprise, he saw Skinner stride across the street with a sour look. 

_What in hell?_ Mulder stared at the crowd and tried to come up with a way to slip through without alarming anyone.

"Hey, FBI man." A familiar voice just behind him almost scared Mulder into materializing. Mulder turned to see Chester grinning at him.

"We need to talk," Chester said as he pointed to a small park outside the ring of police cars.

Mulder was tempted to stay put and find out what was going on, but Chester's invite was strangely compelling. If Vodoun was involved, it probably wouldn't be a good idea to piss off someone who was either a loa himself, or else on very good terms with them. Grumbling, Mulder obligingly followed the scamp. He had grossly underestimated Chester's abilities if he was capable of pulling him across town to talk. 

"Man, you don't know half of what I can do. The loa like me and there isn't much they can't do if they put their minds to it," Chester said with a grin. 

Mulder wondered what Chester had been like as a live boy. He had a insouciant sense of humor that had to have had its seeds in the refugee boy who had died so needlessly in a riot.

"What's so important that you pulled me away from watching Scully?" Mulder demanded. Chester might have his own priorities and Mulder wasn't sure he trusted anyone to guard Scully, especially FBI agents who didn't believe in Vodoun.

"Well, I thought you might like to know that the loa have decided to help you. The killer broke the rules, so my patron spirits aren't bound by the agreement not to interfere." Chester's grin grew wider and his eyes lit up with mischief. 

Mulder wondered what in hell the killer had done. If killing randomly hadn't been enough to break whatever non-intervention pact existed among the loa, what was?

"What happened to change things? I thought we were on our own?" 

"Revenge is approved, even encouraged. If a man has an agreement with a single loa that means the other loa have to follow certain rules unless one of their people is involved. All of you were outsiders, so you were fair game. The loa owe you and Miss Scully, but not enough to outweigh the right to revenge. They could send me to help you since you're sort of in their domain, like me," Chester said with a laugh.

The thought that he might have to cope with curious Vodoun spirits did not brighten Mulder's morning. Despite Chester's obvious delight, Mulder would just as soon avoid further complications to his already complicated existence.

"That still doesn't explain . . . ," Mulder started to object.

Chester shook his head and briefly glanced upwards. "Man, you are dense. You had more wits when you were alive. Think. What can break a contract that permits, even condones, revenge against your enemies?" Chester prodded.

Figuratively taking a deep breath, Mulder pulled up everything he knew about Vodoun. It was a religion of balances so what would tip the scales? Chester happily perched on the hood of a nearby car and grinned at him while he followed lines of reason and deduction. After what seemed like several minutes, but only spanned the time it took Skinner to walk from sidewalk to the knot of men milling around the garage of Delacontari's house, Mulder followed a thread to its logical conclusion.

"Someone not involved in the raid got hurt." Mulder felt approval radiate from Chester and, for a moment, thought he saw the shadow of a tall man standing beside him give a nod of approval. 

"Not bad," Chester said as he cocked his head to one side and nodded approvingly. "I told the loa that you would figure it out. Took you a bit longer than I figured, but you're still a bit confused from the cross-over. The killer's loa still protects him, but he can't stop me from helping you. The loa understand debts. You helped them when you were alive, so they get to help you; Miss Scully, too."

"Then tell me how I stop him before he kills again?" Mulder demanded.

"Take something he wants and he'll come to you," Chester said calmly. "Of course, the baka will also come along and the killer's servant, too, so you'll have your hands full. Three of them to three of you. The loa like to balance things in threes." 

This time the mischief in Chester's grin was anything but encouraging. Mulder had barely escaped with his life, or with whatever passed for his life now, the last time he met the baka. It didn't take a genius profiler to see how Chester had the sides aligned. As far as he could tell, the odds were all in favor of the killer. 

"He wants Scully and I'm not using her as bait," Mulder declared.

Chester shook his head and once again seemed to glance up at the hazy shadow Mulder saw at his side with a look of 'Why me?' Mulder couldn't hear anything, but he saw Chester laugh.

"Being dead has really messed up your brain. You're right on top of the idea if you'll just stop worrying about Miss Scully and think," Chester admonished.

That was the second time Chester had rebuked him for not thinking clearly. Even through his irritation, Mulder wondered if he might not have a point. When he profiled, he used to be able to narrow his focus down to the case and shut out everything else. Now, his mind was scattered between worrying about his relationship with Scully and her safety. 

"Keep an eye on her for me?" Mulder asked.

"OK," Chester promised with a thumbs-up gesture as he abruptly vanished.

Right, Mulder thought as he hoped Chester wouldn't do anything to startle Scully. He liked her, so Mulder was hopeful that he would do anything to scare her, but he was still a child. A mischievous and powerful child, but still a child.

Pulling all of his focus away from the material world was harder than he expected. Part of him didn't want to let go of the cord binding him to Scully's place, but he either had to trust Chester or not. The shadow man had gone with Chester, but Mulder sensed that he wasn't alone. Whatever, or whoever, remained wasn't inimical, but he wasn't entirely sure it was friendly, either. The best appraisal he could come up with was that someone was observing him to see what he would do; a type of testing, perhaps. 

Whatever it was, Mulder decided to ignore it and concentrate on trying to profile the case. Unless Chester was right and death, or that damn baseball, had scrambled his brain, he should be able to slip into the hyper-focused state where he could visualize the facts sliding into place piecing together a shattered vase.

Gradually, Mulder let his mind shift through the evidence and the speculation, trying to make links between fact and hypothesis. Sometimes the pieces moved together easily, some stubbornly refused to fit anywhere at all. He was not aware of the passage of time nor of any pressing concern but the need to peel away the killer's misdirection and see the crimes for what they were.

As he drifted with the wind, he became aware that he might have the ability to go back in time and see the actual commission of the crimes. Certainly real time and space had little meaning for him as a ghost. Could that also mean that he could follow a sequence of events back to their beginning? The idea was tempting, but in the end, his fear of being lost in time was greater than the need to know exactly what happened. He would stick to looking at the evidence they had and drawing conclusions as he always had. 

When at last he had stuck all the pieces he had collected together, he became aware of two things: the sun was up and they were running out of time.

=.=.=.=.=.=.=.=.=.=  
7 a.m. 

In the instant between thinking of Scully and reaching her apartment, Mulder began marshalling the arguments he would need to convince her that they were heading towards a confrontation with a centuries-old malignant Vodoun spirit that had driven Bryson on his killing spree. Scully was going to be a tough sell. Mulder wasn't sure about Simon, but he also had to be convinced. 

"Not bad, for a man who got his brain turned into scrambled eggs," Chester said with a laugh. "She's in the shower."

"Thanks." Mulder prowled around for a moment or two, sniffing the air for any sign that the baka was lurking nearby.

"Nah, the baka won't try anything when I'm here. You got the case solved?" Chester asked impudently.

"I think so. I'd like to read the journal before I say for sure, but I think I know what's going on. A priest, a servant, and a baka seem a bit out of our class, by the way," Mulder chided. He wasn't happy about the odds, but he had a feeling that if the loa Chester was talking about wanted a three on three confrontation, he wasn't going to be able to pull in re-inforcements.

"They think so. Me, I put money on you and Miss Scully." Chester paused for a moment and turned serious. "You'll have help if you're smart enough to find it at the right time. That's all I can tell you and that's pushing it a little far even for me. I'll be there. I can't help, directly, but I can offer advice. Bakas are nasty, but they're really only very big snakes that spit venom and wiggle around a lot," Chester added with a cat-like grin.

Chester seemed awfully blasé about a creature that damn near ran Mulder into the ground and didn't even seem to have its whole mind on the matter. It was too damn early in the morning for this kind of relentless optimism, Mulder decided. 

"I'll see you tonight," Chester said cheerfully as he vanished. 

Mulder muttered softly as he headed for the living room. Having Chester around to bolster his arguments would have been nice. Scully liked Chester, even if he represented an aspect of a religion she considered more than half superstition. 

Half an hour later, Scully emerged and seemed relieved to see him perched on a chair waiting for her. She was dressed in the suit she traditionally wore when she knew a face-off with Skinner was in the offing. Mulder wasn't sure if this was a good sign or not. He knew that wearing it was akin to a knight putting on armor. If Chester had whispered warnings to her in a dream she might have awakened with the sense that the end of the case was drawing near. 

"Morning," he said noncommittally, trying to gauge her receptiveness to a resolution that involved baka and possession by the spirit of a vengeful Vodoun spirit.

"Skinner called," Scully announced brusquely as she walked past him to the kitchen. 

Her rigid posture told Mulder that she was angry; perhaps more at herself for not stopping the killer before he took out an innocent bystander. Mulder wasn't sure what any of them could have done. The killer had been very precise and had executed almost flawless murders up to now. Maybe the loa had a hand in this mistake or maybe the law of averages simply caught up with the killer. Certainly Scully had no reason to anticipate that a mistake would be made. Getting her to believe that was another matter, but right now they didn't have the luxury of indulging in self-recrimination. 

"I was there. Delacontari was the target, but something went wrong. An innocent life was taken, but that means that the killer isn't quite as invulnerable as he was before," Mulder said bleakly. It was a crumb of comfort amid an otherwise nasty case.

"Are you saying that because he made a mistake that the killer is more likely to be off-balance?" Scully asked sharply. She was radiating anger and Mulder was careful to remain at a safe distance. In this mood, she might try to provoke an argument just to have something to vent her rage at. He didn't want that something to be him.

"Would you believe me if I told you that this mistake freed up some friendly loa to help us?" Mulder asked cautiously. He had to move carefully right now. Push Scully too hard too fast and she'd dig in her heels. 

"I don't believe in Voodoo, Mulder," she retorted as she slammed down her coffee mug so hard the coffee inside sloshed dangerously near the lip. 

"Then simply believe that the odds have shifted in our favor. Look at it logically, Scully. Up to now, the killer has executed perfect murders. We may differ on the methods he used, but the results were obvious. Now he's made a mistake and, for the first time, he doesn't see himself as invulnerable. If we play this right, we can draw him into the open and end this. If not believing in Vodoun makes it easier, then don't believe, but at least believe that I can profile this killer," Mulder urged. Over the years Scully had always doubted his belief in the paranormal, but he believed that she trusted in his ability to profile. Now would not be a good time to find out otherwise. Mentally crossing his fingers, he waited for her reply. 

"I refuse to use Simon or Delacontari as bait, Mulder," Scully avowed sternly.

Mulder said a few profane words into the ether where Scully couldn't hear them. She might read his expression and know that he was exasperated by her deliberate side-stepping of the issue, but she probably wouldn't say anything.

"Wouldn't think of it. I said the same thing to Chester about using you as bait," Mulder retorted with a sly grin. "We have something better, or rather will have once you or Simon liberate it from the evidence room."

Scully gave him a look that easily translated 'Are you crazy?' and looked heavenward as if asking for divine intervention.

"Just listen for a moment. Bryson left a journal and a box containing ritual paraphernalia. Something is trying to get at either the journal or the box. That's what's causing the rumpus in the evidence room. I'm guessing, as a profiler, that our killer is behind the rumpus. We can use those items to lure him out of hiding." 

Mulder felt he was on solid ground with these arguments. As a profiler, he was used to selling his predictions and assessments of a killer to skeptical agents. At least Scully was a more receptive audience than some of his fellow agents had been. The next stage of his argument was going to get tricky. There was simply no way not to drag in Chester's comments about three balancing three. Scully had to understand that each of them had a role to play in stopping the killer. If she balked over the idea that Vodoun spirits were involved, then they didn't stand a chance.

"What's the catch, Mulder? You're flickering like a faulty light bulb. That usually means you're trying not to tell me something," Scully said with a stern glare.

Muttering to himself about being way too transparent as a ghost, he concentrated on becoming more solid, then caught the double-meaning of his thought and started to chuckle. Taken aback, Scully stared at him with a mix of impatience and a slight twitch to her lips that might be a smile trying to escape her control.

"The catch is that if we're going to succeed, we need Simon along and both of you are going to have to suspend your disbelief in sorcery until the killer is down. Believe whatever you want to about Chester, but as your resident authority on ghosts, he's one. The difference is that he's got friends in high places. Chester says that we're going to be facing three opponents. I get the snake spirit that damn near had me for lunch, I think you get the killer since his primary focus is revenge on you for killing Bryson. There's obviously a third person involved, but I think he's just along for the muscle. Simon will need to keep him occupied." 

Scully looked stunned, then groped for the couch and sat down heavily. Mulder sympathized. She'd had plenty of practice fielding his theories over the years, but this time she was confronted with a conundrum. Her reflexive response was to deny the existence of the paranormal, but that was rather hard to do when she was talking with a ghost. Mulder watched her try to resolve the conflict until she simply put her head down in her hands and started muttering. Obviously he wasn't supposed to hear her profane swearing at him and at the universe, so he tried to pretend he was waiting for a response. 

"If you expect me to sacrifice a chicken and scatter feathers in a circle, Mulder," Scully began indignantly.

In spite of the seriousness of their situation, Mulder had to chuckle. After an exasperated glare, Scully began to smile and shake her head. The tension between them broke and they relaxed into the familiar feel of shared frustrations and opposing beliefs bound together by a bond that had proven stronger than death.

"OK, no chickens," Mulder noted as if he was compiling a to-do list. 

"Seriously, Mulder," Scully began as she tried to recapture control of the discussion. "I refuse to be part of some occult ritual. Voodoo isn't the only explanation for what happened in South Carolina," she added.

Mulder thought for a moment. Maybe they could use Scully's disbelief to their advantage. Simon more than half believed and Mulder had very few doubts left, at least as far as the baka was concerned. Disbelief could be a weapon, if used correctly. If he could tie up the baka which seemed to have no problem attacking non-believers and if Simon could keep the hired thug occupied, then the killer would have to confront Scully personally. He would have all the power of a Vodoun sorcerer at his command, but a good part of the power of Vodoun depended on the belief on the victim. Force the killer into making a direct assault against a determined non-believer and the odds might shift. It was a slim chance, but it was the best he could come up with.

"Then don't believe. Not believing in Vodoun might just be your best bet. A Vodoun's power doesn't entirely rest in illusions, but a lot of it does. If illusions don't work, then the killer might be forced to use more mundane methods and those you can deal with," Mulder said confidently. Scully might be small, but she was very capable of holding her own given even odds. 

Scully looked startled, then got a far-away, serious look on her face as she started to scrutinize his suggestion for flaws. The longer she took, the more hopeful Mulder became that they had reached a common agreement on basic strategy at least.

"What aren't you telling me?" she asked suspiciously after several minutes. She had combed through his argument without finding a glaring hole and that obviously made her suspicious. 

"If any one of us gets run over, the others will fall," Mulder replied bluntly. Part of him wanted to temporize, to soften the do or die aspect of this confrontation, but Scully had to realize that if they baited the killer, he was going to do everything in his considerable power to take them down. Scully usually liked to have backup and avenues of escape, but Mulder couldn't see how involving anyone else would help. If Chester was right, and Mulder saw no reason to doubt him, bringing in extra people would only be a hindrance.

"We should have backup, Mulder. Protocol . . ." Scully began her usual litany of proper procedure.

"And how would you go about explaining me to Skinner if I have to materialize?" Mulder pointed out. "Chester was pretty clear that the only chance we have of winning is by evenly balancing the forces the killer can bring to the party. If we increase the numbers on our side that means the killer can increase his forces. If I'm very lucky, I might be able to keep the baka off your back while you deal with our suspect. Do you really want to risk the lives of other agents if the killer manages to summon two baka?" Mulder knew appealing to her sense of responsibility was a low blow, but Scully had to realize that her proper protocol wasn't going to do them much good in this situation.

"Why do you have to sound so logical about ignoring the sane, rational thing to do? I know I should call Skinner and ask for backup, but you're right," Scully conceded reluctantly. "I may not believe that some supernatural creature killed Gowers and Thomas, but I find the repeated attacks on the team I led against Bryson too convenient for coincidences." Scully looked unhappy, but Mulder could sense that she had made up her mind.

"I'd like to leave Simon out of this," Scully said wistfully.

Mulder nodded his understanding. Scully might have her doubts about his theory, but she was ready to stake her life on the chance that he was right. 

"If Chester is right and the killer has hired a thug then we'll need Simon. I'll have enough to do keeping the baka occupied." Mulder could see the indecision in Scully's eyes, but she finally sighed and nodded.

"Now all we have to do is convince Simon. How are your debating skills?" Mulder asked facetiously, getting a glare in return. 

"Shoo. I'll see you in the office. This confrontation is your idea. I'm going to let you explain it to Simon. Maybe hearing it a second time will convince me that I haven't gone insane agreeing to it."

Not a very encouraging gesture of support, but Mulder understood Scully's point. It might take her most of the day to convince herself that there was a logical, rational reason they were going to bait a trap for a killer when the only evidence they had were two dead agents, a botched attempt on the life of another, and the testimony of a ghost. Mulder decided that the prudent thing for him to do was disappear and go hang out in the office until Simon showed up. 

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-  
9:30 a.m. X-Files Office

Simon cautiously perched on the edge of his desk. His absorbed pacing during Mulder's exposition had inadvertently taken him through Mulder's area of effect twice. Mulder had apologized and finally ended up dematerializing completely which unnerved Simon even more than feeling his blood turn cold. Intellectually he had come to terms with the idea that Mulder was a ghost and that it was perfectly normal to have him hanging around. Emotionally, hearing the disembodied voice of the man he'd accidentally killed freaked him out. 

Scully had a faintly harried expression as she watched her partners absently pacing around the office and bumping into each other. Mulder's look of horror as Simon brushed through him mirrored Simon's expression so closely that if the situation hadn't been so tense, she might have been tempted to laugh.

Mulder decided that floating cross-legged in midair might feel strange, but it kept him out of Simon's way. Seeing Scully's mouth twitching against an incipient smile almost made being walked through worth it. If Scully could see the humor in the situation then that meant she was beginning to reconcile her skepticism with his proposal. To Mulder it was painfully simple: they either drew the killer to a place of their own choosing, or they waited while he picked them off one by one in sight of Skinner's guards.

"This ties in with a warning I got from my contact within the Vodoun community." Simon gave Scully an apologetic shrug which she waved off. She didn't look happy to have Mulder's theories confirmed, even from what she considered an even more unreliable source. 

"Go on," Scully urged impatiently when Simon appeared to be hesitating. Mulder knew that tone of voice. Scully might dislike paranormal theories, but she hated people tiptoeing around the subject even more.

Taking a deep breath, Simon plunged on. "My source says that something has got the loa upset. The priests have issued orders that no one's to give any aid to anyone who isn't a member of the community. If I'm reading between the lines correctly, there's a power struggle going down and the priests are making sure their people don't get caught in the crossfire. Funny thing, just before he hung up, my source told me to tell the one who belongs to the Baron to remember Papa Legba." Simon looked extremely uncomfortable as he delivered that message.

Mulder didn't blame him. It was a disturbing message. The Baron was the loa of the dead so it was pretty obvious who the message was meant for. He was a little vague on who Papa Legba was, other than he was one of the principal loa. Thought became action and Mulder found himself floating in front of his file cabinets. Materializing just enough to give him a grip on the drawer, he pulled open the files on Vodoun and started rifling through them looking for his notes. 

Simon gruffly cleared his throat and continued on in a more normal tone of voice. "Legba is the guardian of crossroads," he offered. 

Mulder gave him points for not bolting. He kept forgetting how new Simon was to having a ghost appear and disappear right in front of his nose.

"Ah, here it is. Legba is also the opener of doors between worlds. I have no idea what the message means, but I think one of you better stock up on some very good alcohol. If the Baron and Legba are at least tentatively on our side, we might just stand a chance," Mulder said confidently. He wasn't about to admit to Scully that the idea that Baron Samedi considered him to be his was terrifying.

"Mulder, are you seriously suggesting that a bunch of Voodoo spirits are going to be involved in this?" Scully demanded irritably.

"Scully, whether or not you believe in Vodoun or not, if what Simon's source says is true, then the local Vodoun community thinks there's a major confrontation coming on the physical as well as the spiritual plane. Does that about sum it up, Simon?" Mulder asked. To his relief, Simon nodded.

"It sounds to me like there's an outsider trying to move into and take over. If the killer is involved with Vodoun then the local priests might consider his activities as poaching on their territory. Even if nothing about Vodoun is credible, you can at least understand a play for power. Knocking off FBI agents with impunity sounds like a sure-fire way to boast that you've got major pull with the spirit world," Simon argued earnestly. 

Mulder noticed that Simon seemed to lose his nervousness in the excitement of the argument. He tried not to be jealous at the way Scully stopped to consider his words. Simon seemed to have found the key to reconciling the paranormal with Scully's skepticism; cast the argument in terms she could accept. Simon's explanation could be justified on a rational level. Mulder knew there was far more to the case than a simple play for religious prestige. Simon seemed to have at least a quasi-belief in the spiritual aspects of the case, although he seemed to be uncomfortable with them.

"Fine. If Bryson was somehow involved with Voodoo and the man behind the recent deaths of members of our team is also involved with Voodoo, then why did none of the profiles on Bryson suggest this connection?" Scully didn't smile triumphantly at this glaring lapse as Mulder expected her to. The feline purr of satisfaction whenever she pounced on a hole in his logic was missing. Instead, she seemed more thoughtful than satisfied. 

"Maybe the journal could tell us. It's older than Bryson by at least a century," Mulder said quietly.

"How do you know that?" Scully demanded, startled out of her train of thought.

"I felt it when I paid a visit to the evidence room last night. The journal is old, very old. The box may be the bait we're looking for, but I think the journal may hold the answers to questions we haven't started asking." 

"There's no case, Mulder. We don't have justification to remove that box from the evidence room," Scully objected.

"That's easy," Simon replied with a sheepish grin. "Jackson owes me a favor. If I ask for the box containing the evidence from the Bryson case, he won't ask why. I have a question, though," Simon added with a worried look on his face. 

Scully looked as if she was trying to come up with a logical reason to tell Simon to back off, but Mulder could practically smell the curiosity roiling off of her. She might feel that they had simply overlooked something that would give them a credible lead to the killer. If trying to stay within the boundaries of logic and rationalism made her more amenable to the project, Mulder was more than happy to let her rationalize away.

When Mulder didn't prompt Simon for his question, Scully gave a small tsk and gestured for Simon to go ahead and ask the question.

"If we assume that the killer is the one creating the disturbance in the evidence room and that as of last night the evidence box is still secure, what's going to happen when I take the box out of the locker?" Simon's worried expression said volumes about whether he believed they were dealing with a sorcerer or not.

Scully looked blank and turned to Mulder. It was obvious from her expression that the ball was in his court. He was the one promoting the supernatural aspect of the case so he got to be the one to assure Simon that he wouldn't disappear in a puff of smoke. The problem was, Mulder wasn't entirely sure he wouldn't.

"Give me a moment to think about this," Mulder responded. Simon didn't look encouraged by this, but held his peace and pretended to shuffle papers on his desk to give Mulder time to ponder the question.

_Chester?_ Mulder made a silent call to the boy ghost hoping he was hanging around somewhere close. This wasn't the time for guesswork. 

"I'm here, but I'm going to have to explain about putting out the proper invite. Told you last time, I'd talk for a Big Mac and fries. I can't just be handing out free advice to just anyone who calls. There are rules, man," Chester admonished with a wide grin as he appeared. At Mulder's sharp look of concern at Scully, Chester laughed. "Nah, she can't see me unless I want her to."

"Been listening in?" Mulder asked with an answering smile. He liked Chester who seemed to have adapted to being a ghost far easier than he had. Maybe believing in Vodoun made the transition easier.

"Some. Tell Simon to find his gris-gris. It's got some powerful stuff in it. The baka won't like getting close to him and the man you're hunting won't want to use up the kind of power he'd need to force it against Simon this early. Go with him and the balance swings your way." Chester sauntered around the office, eagerly exploring, just like any 10-year-old boy.

"Thanks. Maybe Simon can pick up a Big Mac and some fries for you," Mulder offered. Chester's answering grin shone like a beacon. In the back of his mind, Mulder wondered why they hadn't felt cold waves coming off Chester when he was fully materialized. Maybe Vodoun ghosts operated under different rules. Mulder had a feeling that what he didn't know about ghosts would fill a library.

"OK. I just checked with Chester," Mulder said, ignoring Scully's look of dismay. "Simon," he prompted to draw Simon's attention away from trying to find another ghost in the room.

"Sorry, yes?" came Simon's flustered reply.

"Chester said something about a gris-gris you have. I get the feeling that it's very important so you might want to find it before you go near the evidence room. Oh, and pick up a Big Mac and fries on your way back. Chester seems to feel we owe him for his advice." Mulder flashed Scully a reminiscent smile. After a moment, she smiled back with a resigned shake of her head.

"Might as well, Simon. I have a feeling that we're going to have a visitor. I can't explain Chester, but I can't explain Mulder, either," Scully said with a weary, sad look in her eyes that reminded Mulder that he was the grit in her well-oiled machine of scientific rationalism.

Simon looked wild-eyed for a moment, then collected himself with a visible shake. "I haven't thought about that gris-gris for years. I know where it is, so I can run home and be back in a couple of hours. Anything I should pick up other than the Big Mac and fries? Once we get this bait, where are we going to wait for the killer to respond? I really don't think the Hoover Building would be a good idea," Simon said in what Mulder considered a massive understatement.

"Somewhere open and reasonably private," Mulder suggested. 

"As long as we're asking questions, I have one," Scully announced. Mulder figuratively held his breath. Scully had a genius for last-minute questions that threw giant monkey wrenches into his plans. True, they were often extremely important monkey-wrenches, but nonetheless they had a tendency to throw everything into spontaneous free fall.

"How are we going to ditch Skinner's guard detail?" 

Scully still looked disgusted that Skinner had felt it necessary to assign agents to protect her. Mulder had been enthusiastic about the idea, but right now they were going to be rather inconvenient. 

"Damn," Simon muttered, making it clear that he'd forgotten all about the agents keeping an eye on him.

"Well, I was thinking that the soccer field near Scully's apartment complex would do meet the requirements of open space and private. If we can set this meeting to go down towards midnight, we'll probably have all the privacy we need. Maybe I can distract the guards long enough for you two to slip out unnoticed," Mulder offered. 

Scully opened her mouth as if to object then shut it again. She didn't look pleased. The look she gave him suggested that as soon as she could come up with a better plan, his offer was going to be booted off the field.

"Mulder," Simon began hesitantly. Mulder turned his attention away from trying to decipher Scully's expression. "I have an idea, but not a clue if it will work."

Scully looked hopeful then grimaced as Simon shook his head. "Not about how we sneak past the guards. I remember reading somewhere that iron interferes with extrasensory perception. If that's what the killer is using to zero in on the evidence box, maybe I could put the journal and that small box you mentioned in an iron chest. If it works, then he won't be able to locate the objects until we open the box again." 

Mulder thought about it for a moment and realized that Simon had very neatly resolved the nagging feeling he'd been having that they were overlooking something important. Squelching a spark of jealousy over Simon's quick wits involved a brief internal tussle, but thankfully neither Simon nor Scully noticed. Scully was giving the idea some thought and Simon was trying to look interested in one of the Bureau's memos reminding agents of some new regulation.

"Good thought," Mulder finally managed to say with determined enthusiasm. He was getting better at controlling his emotions. When unrestrained emotional outbursts created mini-lightning storms in the immediate vicinity, he had plenty of incentive for pouncing on his anger and jealousy before Scully saw them.

"Do you have an iron container handy?" Scully asked.

"As a matter of fact, yes. Long story. I'd rather not go into details, but I have an iron box about the size of a large safe-deposit box." Simon gave Mulder a slightly sheepish look. Mulder made a mental note to ask for the story later. It promised to be interesting.

"Fine. I have a 10:30 appointment with A. D. Skinner," Scully announced with a resigned expression. "I'm going to try to persuade him that we stand a better chance of catching the killer if he wasn't so obvious about the guard detail." Scully didn't look very hopeful, but she would probably give Skinner every argument she could think of.

"You might mention that the killer has been following a strict pattern so far. There's no reason to believe that he won't try for Delacontari again. That might pull some of the watchdogs off you," Mulder suggested. Scully nodded her thanks for the suggestion.

"I'll run home and dig out my gris-gris and the lead box. With luck and good traffic, I should be back here by 1 p.m.," Simon said as he walked over to grab his coat.

"Make it 2. The longer we wait to pull the evidence box, the less time our suspect has to prepare. The closer you stick to a normal routine, the better. The last thing we need is for Skinner to suspect that we're up to something. Oh, and don't forget the Big Mac and fries," Mulder reminded him. Simon nodded and walked out of the office, pulling on his coat.

Scully paused in the midst of gathering up papers and gave Mulder a suspicious look. "What are you going to do?" Her tone wasn't quite accusing, but it was clear she wasn't sure he should be left to his own devices for several hours.

"Drift around checking things out. Rest. Talk with the guys. Take ghost lessons from Chester. You know, the same old, same old," Mulder added with a mischievous grin.

Scully started to glare sternly, then shook her head and gave him the resigned, 'Why me?' smile she used to give him when he veered off after a wild goose. Mulder's grief for his old life ached, but he managed an impudent grin for Scully's sake. 

Left alone in the office, Mulder puttered about for a bit, then paid the soccer field a visit to satisfy himself that it was big enough to give him maneuvering room and open enough to make sneaking up on them impossible. A sniper might be able to hide in the bleachers. The third man was the complete unknown. Chester had implied that he was a hireling which could cover everything from a street thug to an assassin. A sweep of the bleachers before Scully and Simon arrived seemed to be called for. He'd have to remind Simon to wear his flak jacket. 

Mulder considered the possibilities of staging an area-wide blackout to cover their escape from Scully's apartment as well as to give the local cops and neighborhood watch people something to occupy their attention. Scully wouldn't approve, probably, but what she didn't know about until it happened she couldn't argue against. Scouting the various transformers took up the best part of an hour, but by the end he knew which transformers needed to blow to achieve a quarter-mile blackout. A nice thunderstorm would be useful as cover, but the night promised to be cold and clear with a waning crescent moon. Waning moons symbolized waning power in many traditions, he recalled, but the fading moon could also represent the increase in dark powers. Mulder frowned, then decided he had no idea what effect the moon would have on their confrontation. Probably even odds if he understood Chester's comment about the loa liking balance. 

Having exhausted the strategic possibilities of the soccer field, Mulder decided to relax all hold on the material world and fade into the gray fog bank that served as his refuge. He'd come awake if Scully needed him, but until then he could rest. If he was going to do battle with a baka tonight, he wanted to be very rested. 

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=  
2:30 p.m. X-Files Office

Responding to Scully's whispered summons, Mulder hovered for a moment to make sure he wouldn't accidentally materialize too close to her or Simon. Simon was staring at the small desk in the back of the office with a wild-eyed expression. Scully was at her desk studiously ignoring the small desk. Mulder recognized her 'if I don't see him he doesn't exist' posture and knew that Chester had shown up to claim his payment.

"Hi, mon," Chester said happily around a mouthful of fries. "The new guy catches on pretty good. He bought me a milkshake." Chester grinned at Simon who gave him a weak, strained smile in return.

"How was Skinner?" Mulder asked Scully as he slipped past Simon to a chair opposite Scully's desk. She looked relieved that she didn't have to turn around to talk to him and confront Chester happily pigging out on hamburgers and fries.

"Testy," Scully replied. "Furious, frustrated, and impossible to reason with. The guards will remain in place and I am to cooperate fully with their efforts to protect me. I gave my word, Mulder," she continued in a disgusted tone. 

"That complicates matters. I suppose that your word includes not slipping out to take care of the killer?" Mulder asked in growing frustration. Why did most of his plans always seem to crumble?

Scully nodded with an expression of mixed frustration and defiance. Mulder was afraid she'd see it that way. OK, so the soccer field was out. That left either the Hoover Building or her apartment and neither place appealed to him.

"I'm sorry, Mulder. I couldn't reason with him and it was either agree or find myself and Simon moved to a safe house." Scully didn't look happy as she braced herself for Mulder's reaction.

"You did what you had to," he assured her. "We'll find a way to work around it. Pity you don't have the reputation for ignoring the rules I did," Mulder added with deliberate mischievous smile that evoked an answering smile from Scully as he hoped it would. He could see the tense set of her shoulders relax.

"Simon?"

Simon jumped, swallowed hard, and pulled his attention away from Chester, who grinned at him. "What?"

"Did you get everything you went home for?" Mulder asked.

"Yep." Simon opened his shirt and showed them a small leather bag hanging from a leather thong around his neck. He pointed to a large metal box on his desk. 

Leaning towards Simon to get a closer look at the gris-gris, he saw it glow with the radiance of hot coals and hoped that the sorcerer and his baka would be as reluctant to get close to it as he was. He had the coin Chester had given him and Scully had her cross and her indomitable skepticism regarding all things paranormal. Scanty shields for the fight they were facing, but unless Scully had a saint hidden among her acquaintances, they would have to do. 

"Any ideas on what ground to pick?" Mulder asked Chester. He wasn't sure the boy would be allowed to give them this much help, but it couldn't hurt to ask.

"Familiar ground is best," Chester replied cautiously. His eyes flickered briefly around the room, but he said nothing more. Mulder could take a hint. He wasn't happy about turning his old office into a battleground, but he had the advantage of knowing every inch of this room and the hallways leading to it. 

"Here?" Simon yelped in surprise when Mulder pointed his finger straight down. "Can the killer get past security?"

Mulder looked blank and turned to Chester for an answer.

"It'll piss him off, but he can get in. His hired man might be harder to pull through, but he can manage that as well. He'll use up a lot of goodwill doing it," Chester said looking a lot more cheerful than Mulder felt. So much for hope that the odds had swung in their favor.

"Mulder, we can't . . . " Scully began with a horrified look. 

"It's either here, your apartment, or you break your word to Skinner," Mulder told her bluntly. He sympathized, but her promise to Skinner had severely limited their options. Either they drew the killer to a place of their choosing, or they let him continue to pick them off at times of his choosing.

The glare Scully gave him could have fried an egg, but Mulder stood his ground. She was caught between three bad choices, or four if she actually decided to wait for the killer to attack again. Mulder didn't think she'd risk losing another agent to that last option. Scully was difficult to predict most days, but if he had to profile her reaction to this kind of choice, he was certain that breaking her word wouldn't be her first or even second choice. That left choosing between her apartment or this office as the place to confront the killer and Mulder was willing to bet that she'd choose her apartment. It would involve fewer rationalizations about how the killer broke through the security net. Tonight was going to give her skepticism enough blows to explain away without including a killer slipping through the Hoover Building's security.

"I don't like it, Mulder, but our suspect has already shown that he can enter my apartment at will. At least there we'll have backup within call if we need it," Scully said with an air of satisfaction.

Mulder started to point out that if the loa had decided that this confrontation was going to be balanced three against three then she could have the U.S. Marines within call and they wouldn't be of any use. Looking at Scully's satisfied expression, Mulder decided not to push the matter. Her disbelief was the strongest defense she could have against a sorcerer. Put her into the middle of a fight and she'd find a way to fight, even if she refused to accept that she wasn't fighting something perfectly normal. He looked over at Simon who was fingering his gris-gris and staring at Chester. He looked like he was considering all the possibilities. Mulder couldn't do much to dissuade him. Simon was at least halfway a believer. He had protections and perhaps just enough knowledge to help him avoid the more obvious traps. Hopefully, he wouldn't have to confront either the baka or the sorcerer. 

"Agreed?" Scully asked with the tone of someone who didn't want to hear objections. 

Mulder gave her a half-smile and a nod. He had plenty of objections, but he had made a promise to himself to let her run the show, even if all his instincts warned him that this wasn't the best choice. Chester looked at her, shook his head, then jumped down from the table where he'd been sitting.

"I told them you'd be stubborn about this. It's your fight. I'll drop in to see how you're doing," he promised as he vanished.

Scully started, then quickly turned to the papers on her desk. Out of sight, out of mind her posture seemed to say. 

"It's nearly 3 p.m. now. Simon, go collect the evidence box at 4:30 and we'll head to my place at 5 p.m. If anyone asks, we're going over the evidence in the Bryson case to see if there are any leads to the recent attacks. I'm certain that Skinner will be more than happy to have both of us under one roof. Do you have anything to add, Mulder?" Scully asked briskly. She was slipping into command mode which meant that objections and sudden changes in plans had better be well thought out. 

"No. I'll stick with Simon until we reach your apartment complex, then I'll do a quick sweep of your apartment. Don't come in until I give you the OK. The killer is familiar with your apartment and I don't want him setting any surprises." Mulder tried not to think of the kinds of traps a Vodoun sorcerer could come up with. "If I don't show up with the OK, that means I'm either already fighting the baka or else the killer has found a way to take me out. Scully, be careful," he pleaded.

For the first time, Scully seemed to grasp that this confrontation had dangerous consequences for Mulder. Shock, then dismay flickered across her face before she reached out to touch him with a look of fear and loss.

"It's no more dangerous than all the other times we've gone up against the bad guys. The methods are different, that's all," Mulder tried to assure her as he allowed himself to materialize enough to let her feel him. Simon shivered briefly then braced himself and looked away.

"Be careful, yourself, Mulder," Scully said softly as she rallied her emotional control and assumed the air of a confident law enforcement officer about to go administer a sound thumping to the bad guys.

Mulder faded slowly to give Scully and Simon a chance to make their own preparations for the confrontation. Taking this last chance before starting the chain of events that he hoped would lead to the arrest, or preferably the death, of the killer, Mulder slipped into Scully's apartment and made sure that everything was secure. The apartment set aside for Skinner's guard detail was occupied by a very bored young agent trying to pay attention to video screens scanning the walkway into Scully's apartment as well as the parking lot. Thankfully, Scully had put her foot down against having a camera inside her apartment. Mulder wasn't sure just what it might have picked up, but he was certain that explaining it would have stretched Scully's imagination to the limits. The circuit breakers for the apartment complex were easily found. If he had to create a power failure to keep Skinner's agents from getting in harm's way he would, but he hoped that wouldn't be necessary. 

 

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Hoover Building Evidence Lockup  
4:45 p.m. Wednesday afternoon

"Here you go, Ambercrombie. I was just about to route this box to storage, but if you think it might help to catch whoever killed Gowers, you're more than welcome to it. Just sign for it and don't worry about keeping it over the deadline," Jackson said heartily as he swung around a clipboard containing a release form.

"Thanks. We probably won't find anything useful, but I'd like to check and be sure," Ambercrombie replied as he balanced the box in one hand and signed with the other. He tried to ignore the prickly feeling of Mulder's ghost standing next to him. Praying that Jackson would restrain his tendency to crack jokes at Mulder's expense, he slapped his signature on the form and headed for the door.

"Keep an eye on that box, Ambercrombie. Evidence has a habit of disappearing whenever it gets near that basement," Jackson quipped, laughing at his own joke.

Simon held his breath, but aside from an increase in static electricity in his area, Mulder was keeping to his promise to behave. If Jackson kept this up, Simon wouldn't blame Mulder if he started making Jackson's life miserable. Simon frowned at Jackson, then turned his back on him. Jackson muttered something that could have been anything from an apology to an insult, but Simon just ignored him.

"Don't worry, I'm used to the jokes. Unfortunately, some are truer than I like to admit." 

Mulder's quiet whisper steadied him. Remembering that Mulder could pitch his voice so that only the person he was talking to could hear him, he managed not to shoot an apprehensive glance at Jackson. The walk down the hallway to the men's room seemed to take forever. Mulder remained completely invisible, but Simon could feel the static electricity roiling around him. They had discussed the possibility that their suspect might be watching the evidence room for a chance to snatch the box and Mulder was along to try to block any attempt to spring the trap before they were ready. Simon didn't know whether the electrical discharges simply meant that Mulder was on guard or if he was actively thwarting an attack. The only thing he could do was keep walking and hope he could reach the safety of the men's room where the iron box was stashed. The sooner he got whatever the killer wanted under lock and key, the quicker he could start breathing normally again.

"So far, so good," Mulder whispered. "We probably tripped an alarm when we took the box out of the evidence locker, but I think we should be able to get the silver box stashed away before our suspect can react. Put the journal in as well, just to be on the safe side, but I'm pretty certain that our bait is going to be that silver box."

Simon nodded and tried to walk a little faster while appearing to casually stroll down the hallway. He was coming to the conclusion that skulking about wasn't something that came naturally to him. Thankfully, there was no one in the hallway or in the restroom. Simon pulled the iron box out of hiding and hurriedly poured the silver box and the journal into it before placing the iron box into the cardboard evidence box. It was a tight fit, but with a little pushing it slid in. Simon breathed a sigh of relief. Up to now, he hadn't been sure Mulder's guess about the evidence was correct, but as soon as he saw the silver box, his doubts disappeared. There was no way he wanted to touch that thing with his bare hands. It had been all he could do to tip it into the iron box. The electrical discharges in the air where Mulder was standing flared up and stung his bare skin like a thousand biting ants.

"Sorry," Mulder said as he came visible for just a moment and shook himself like a dog coming out of water. "That box is dangerous and it's definitely putting out a call. The iron should keep it muted until we're ready to set the trap, though. Feel up to making it back to the office? If I'm wrong, I'd rather fight there than make a running fight through the hallways. I don't think Skinner is ready for that," Mulder added with a sardonic smile.

Simon nodded and tried to return the smile. Right about now, the full import of the trap they were laying was hitting him. All the training he'd had at Quantico hadn't prepared him to battle sorcerers and Voodoun hit men, he lamented to himself. Judo lessons and the brief course he'd taken in Aikido might, but he had a sinking feeling that improvisation was going to be the order of the night. He'd never been very good at spontaneity, but he supposed it was a bit late to mention this fact.

Picking up the evidence box, Simon tried to act as if he had nothing more important on his mind than fighting Washington traffic on his way home. He caught a glimpse of Skinner's watchdogs and nodded briefly to them before taking the elevator down to the basement. Their plan was for them to travel to Scully's apartment in separate cars with Scully taking the evidence box with her. Mulder was going to act as a roving guard, moving between the two cars to make sure that the suspect didn't try a pre-emptive strike. The plan was a rough one, but Simon knew they really didn't have time or resources to prepare a more foolproof one. At least Mulder would be able to quickly check out the apartment so they wouldn't be walking into a surprise. 

Simon still felt guilty whenever he was around Mulder, but the man, or rather his ghost, seemed to accept that Simon's role in his death had been a tragic accident for both of them. Simon wondered, if their places had been reversed, whether he'd have been able to forgive. Angry at himself for indulging in self-pity, Simon left the elevator and hurried to the hopeful safety of the X-Files office. It was with a great sense of relief that he set the evidence box down on Scully's desk and fell into his chair. One hurdle jumped, but the evening was young.

"Thank you, Simon," Scully said after a moment. 

Simon suspected that her attention had been focused on Mulder's report. He was beginning to recognize the slightly far-away look marked by a softening of her eyes combined with a sad smile that told him she was talking with the partner he had so unceremoniously hurled into the afterlife. 

_Out, damn guilt,_ Simon muttered to himself and firmly locked up every stray sense of guilt or shortcoming. If they survived the night, he'd indulge in an orgy of remorse accompanied by several large beers, but right now, his attention was needed on the job, not on his personal Pandora's box. 

"All right, then, let's get started. Skinner has placed Delacontari in a safe house somewhere out of town. That should put him out of reach of the killer. I told Skinner that we would be reviewing the Bryson case files at my place tonight so we should leave together. Try to stay close, but if we're separated, Mulder can keep an eye on both of us," Scully added with a soft look towards the faintly coalescing shadow by the printer.

"Scully, I told you that I don't need the cross to find Simon any longer. You're going to need that cross and I'll feel better knowing you have it." Mulder kept his voice pitched for Scully's ears alone. It might have been necessary at first for Simon to wear Scully's cross, but the longer he kept it, the harder it was for Mulder not to yank it off. Probably any cross would do given Scully's faith in the symbol, not the physical item, but that cross had served as the only link Mulder had had to Scully during her abduction and he wanted to believe some of his stubborn faith that she would return had become part of the cross.

After giving him an exasperated look, Scully nodded. "Simon, Mulder says he can find you without using the cross I loaned you as a beacon. If you honestly believe in that amulet you're wearing, then I'd like the cross back," she asked awkwardly.

Hastily, Simon unclasped the cross and handed it back to her. "No problem. I don't think the two traditions would conflict, but I'd rather not experiment. Thank you for the loan." Simon looked uncomfortable and quickly turned to putting some papers in his briefcase.

"Then let's get started. I'm not putting much faith in this whole Voodoo sorcery theory of Mulder's, but if the killer is tracking us, the sooner we get home, the better." With that, Scully scooped up the evidence box, grunting a bit in surprise at the weight, then shifted it to a more comfortable carrying position and headed for the door. 

Simon made a lunge to get it open one step ahead of her before she could juggle the box to grab the doorknob. Trying to act natural during the long trek to the parking garage was difficult, but they finally managed to achieve a genial level of banter. Their respective watchdogs kept a discreet distance behind them before peeling off into two cars. The small cavalcade proceeded out of the garage and into the darkness of a Washington winter night. 

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=  
6 p.m. Wednesday evening  
Scully's Apartment

To Mulder's relief they arrived in the parking lot of Scully's apartment building without incident. Traffic had been heavy and somewhere along the way they had lost the cars containing Skinner's guards. The half hour until they caught back up was, for Mulder, a nerve-racking period of jumping back and forth between Simon's and Scully's cars trying to anticipate an attack that luckily never came. Mulder wasn't sure if their suspect knew the box was in transit or if he had somehow arranged for the traffic snarls, but if he had, then he'd been unable to take advantage of the momentary opportunity.

Before Scully's car finished pulling into her parking slot, Mulder had made a beeline for her apartment. He sensed the flowers before he flowed through the front door. The killer had made another gift of funeral flowers. The stink of them enraged Mulder, but he controlled the urge to heave them through a window. After a painstaking check of every room and the area outside the windows, Mulder slipped back to Scully who was taking her time closing up the car. The watchdogs were milling about scanning the area and clearly impatient to get both their charges inside.

"All clear, but the killer dropped off some more flowers. Either he's found a way to avoid the security cameras or else he can walk right past them without triggering an alarm," Mulder reported grimly.

Scully bent down to pick up the evidence box from the passenger seat and used the opportunity to scowl. By the time she was upright again, her composure was back to normal. Simon gave her a quizzical look, but then smiled for the benefit of the watchdogs. 

We've had a visit from the killer," Mulder whispered to him as he shadowed them up the sidewalk, watching for any sign of the baka. He wished there was a way he could tell how long ago the flowers had been dropped off. Tempting as it was to flit over to the command center in the apartment across from Scully's, Mulder wanted to wait until Simon and Scully were safely inside her apartment. If the killer had struck again, they'd know about it soon enough. Maybe he was simply showing them that he could get past the security measures; a gesture calculated to throw them off-balance rather than celebrating a successful hit. 

Once inside the apartment, Scully grabbed the vase of flowers and dumped them in the garbage can and set the can outside her back door on the small patio. Mulder approved. He didn't want anything left by the killer remaining in the apartment before they set the trap. What he didn't know about Vodoun could fill volumes. What he did know made him very wary of the things he didn't know. Extreme paranoia seemed called for right now and he was glad to see that Scully shared his aversion to having the flowers remain in the apartment. Under other circumstances, Mulder might have urged her to take them clear out to the garbage canister by the alley, but he didn't want Simon and Scully separated even by a few yards.

"Now what?" Scully asked as Mulder cautiously materialized by the Christmas tree. She sounded impatient and a bit irritated, but Mulder recognized that tone as her 'prepare for battle' voice and knew she was taking this operation very seriously. She might not believe in the paranormal aspects he had described, but hopefully all she had to do was hold on to her skepticism and force the sorcerer to meet her on her terms. Big task, but Mulder intended to be there to nudge things along if he could.

"Why don't you and Simon eat something and make some coffee before we open that box?" Mulder suggested. "I'll stay on watch and patrol the area. If our killer comes early, I'll let you know."

Scully nodded and headed to the kitchen. Simon prowled around the room and, after getting Scully's OK, explored the other rooms as well. By the time Scully had brought out cups, coffee pot, and a large plate of cheese and crackers, he seemed satisfied that he knew the layout and all the possible access points. Mulder came in from prowling and shook his head to tell them that so far he hadn't detected so much as a stray vibration.

A half hour later, Scully cleared the dishes and sat down on the couch. The evidence box sat on the coffee table in front of her. Simon swallowed nervously several times, but nodded his readiness to set the trap. Mulder decided to coalesce to a hazy shadow, mostly in the ether so that he could intercept the baka, but with another foot on the same physical plane as Simon and Scully so he could try to help them if they needed it. He felt as tense as he had when waiting for the starter pistol on a marathon run. Once the race began he could relax and concentrate on running, but the wait always played havoc with his nerves.

Scully looked around the room, pausing for a long minute at the Christmas tree sparkling and homey in the corner, then, with a deep breath, she removed the small silver box from the iron lockbox. It seemed to sparkle with dark sparks of energy that hissed in the air as Mulder stared at it. Malevolence radiated from it and Mulder kept a safe distance away. Even Scully seemed mildly affected as she rubbed her hands on the couch and moved to stand in the opposite corner from the tree. Simon took up position in the kitchen doorway, where he could watch the living room as well as the back door and the door into Scully's bedroom. Now all they could do was wait.

A half hour of tense waiting passed before Mulder saw the air around the silver box begin to move. Neither Scully nor Simon appeared to notice anything. Hesitating to sound the alarm prematurely, Mulder left off pacing around the apartment and the nearby grounds to focus on the box. At first, the disturbance seemed to be nothing more than a light breeze, barely noticeable, even for Mulder. Gradually, however, the breeze became a wispy tendril testing the air and darting towards the box. The dark sparks spat out and were absorbed by the tendril causing it to assume a dark, dusky appearance. Suddenly the tendril lunged at the box.

"They're here," Mulder shouted as he pushed his hand between the tendril and the box wincing as the sparks splattered against his hand. They burned like hot embers, but Mulder forced himself to swat the box off the table and into the waiting iron box on the floor. 

Holding his burned hand, Mulder kicked the lid down on the iron box and braced himself. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Simon's head go up as the sound of glass breaking reached him. Grim-faced, Simon headed into the kitchen. Scully had startled when the silver box hit the iron container on the floor, then tensed as she watched Simon leave the room. She appeared calm and determined, but Mulder sensed her unease as she tried to ready herself to face whatever came through the front door.

"Give them hell, partner," he whispered to her. He'd never been good at famous last words and hoped that these wouldn't qualify. 

"Be careful, Mulder," came her reply along with the familiar half-resigned, half-determined smile she used whenever they had faced impossible odds together. He held that smile fixed in his mind as he felt the air in the room begin to boil.

With a rush and a roar, the baka surged into the room, past Scully, who shuddered and stepped back, and straight at Mulder. Grasping the coin Chester had given him, Mulder side-stepped the charge. Turning sharply, the baka appeared to take shape, drawing heat from the air to form a writhing serpentine form that seemed part cat and part python. As solid as the baka appeared, Mulder knew that it was entirely centered in his world. Only if he failed, would it gain the power to materialize fully and threaten Scully. That meant that failing wasn't an option, although at the moment, Mulder wasn't entirely sure that winning was either. The best he was hoping for was a draw.

The baka sprang at him again and Mulder wrenched his attention away from Scully and whatever she might be facing to focus entirely on staying one step ahead of the baka. Malevolent didn't begin to describe the aura around the baka. Mulder had come face to face with evil when he was alive. Evil took on an entirely different dimension in the non-material world he now inhabited. Here, evil reeked more than the sewers of New Jersey. The actual physics of the baka were a mystery, but instinctively he knew that the stench was as big a danger as the beast-spirit's razor-sharp teeth and claws. Apparently the creature could smother him as well as shred him apart. This was not looking good.

Crashing sounds from the kitchen told him that Simon was probably busy with the hired help. Dodging the baka's charge by literally leaping for the chandelier, Mulder spared a glance to see if Scully was all right. Her expression of dismay and the standard FBI stance when pointing a gun at someone told him that somehow the killer had gained entry. Part of him wanted to rush to her side, but the baka was charging and dodging became more important. He'd just have to trust that Scully would be able to hold her own. His profiling instincts told him that the killer would wait until his creatures had destroyed her last hope and then, when she was totally alone, try to destroy her. 

Mulder lost track of how many times the baka charged and how many different ways he found to dodge. He wasn't always successful. His side burned from a close encounter with the baka's claws and he was finding it increasingly hard to move in the turgid air bubble around the baka. The coin seemed to make the baka wary of actually closing with him. He had struck at the baka with the coin swinging from it's leather thong and felt it connect. The creature's roar of pain sent him tumbling through the walls, across the hallway, and halfway through the apartment with Skinner's men before he could stop himself. The baka followed and all hell broke loose. Under other circumstances, Mulder might have been amazed at the different ways electronic equipment had of blowing apart, but playing fox to the baka's hound took all his attention. Making a sudden decision, he decided to lure the baka into the small garden in front of Scully's apartment building. 

The night was cold and clear. Pausing as he waited for the baka to follow him, Mulder felt the cool light of the thin crescent moon wash away the stench of the baka. Raising his head to look at the sky, Mulder realized that he could see each separate star so that the entire sky looked like it was full of fire. Feeling starlight and moonlight pour down over him, he was startled realize that he could draw power from them. 

As the baka sprang out through the walls in pursuit it appeared less substantial in the moonlight. The baka also seemed to be making an effort to keep to the shadows except when it launched another attack. As he dodged away, Mulder began to form a rough plan. It was a gamble, but most of his plans usually were. Some of the time they actually worked, he reminded himself.

With more room to maneuver and with the baka attempting to stay in the shadows, Mulder had time to consider his options between attacks. He wasn't sure how much time had elapsed, but he could see shadows moving back and forth in Scully's kitchen and guessed that Simon was still fighting the killer's henchman. He couldn't see through the walls into Scully's living room, but he seemed to sense fear wafting on the wind. She was in danger and all his impulses were commanding him to rush to her defense. Turning away from that fear to face the baka hurt worse than the baka's claws had. 

"Hold on, Scully," Mulder whispered knowing that she probably would never hear him. 

Turning to face the baka, Mulder decided that he'd had enough. If he was wrong, he'd probably never know what happened to Scully. It didn't take a genius to figure out that if the baka tore him to shreds that he'd simply cease to exist and the baka would be free to join the killer in attacking Scully. 

"Here, kitty, kitty," Mulder called mockingly to the baka. Praying had never come naturally to him and he didn't think now was the time to try to mend fences with whoever ran the universe, but if Chester was right, then there was someone who might just be listening. 

Swallowing his fear, Mulder called out a single name. "Baron." He asked nothing, promised nothing, but simply acknowledged that he existed within the Baron's sphere of authority. 

A soft laugh came out of the darkness behind him. "You called?"

Shaking off a sudden urge to flee from what he had summoned, Mulder stood his ground as the baka lunged. To his surprise, the baka skittered to a stop, legs splaying in all directions as it attempted to stop its forward motion. Mulder held up the thong holding Chester's coin and saw the moonlight reflect off the coin. The baka screamed. In the distance, Mulder could hear transformers blowing and the lights went out on the entire block and probably for several surrounding blocks, he guessed. Reduced to only the natural light of stars and moon, Mulder saw the baka's form begin to grow hazy. He took a step forward and the baka retreated; grudgingly, spitting venom, but retreating.

Now Mulder began a slow advance, driving the baka away from Scully's apartment. The Baron strolled casually behind him, laughing softly when the baka hissed. Time lost all meaning as Mulder slowly forced the baka backwards. With each step back, the baka became less solid until finally it was nothing more than a shape made out of smoke. As he forced the baka to retreat, Mulder had begun coiling up the thong until he held the coin in his hand. Suddenly, he stopped, assumed a pitcher's stance, and threw it directly at the baka's head. The creature's scream flattened Mulder and set every dog in a five mile area to howling insanely. When Mulder raised his head, the baka was gone.

"Not bad. You just might do. Chester, you win this round." 

Looking up, Mulder saw a tall, skeletal figure dressed in top hat and tails standing over him. The Baron bowed slightly and following his gaze, Mulder saw Chester sitting on a tree branch grinning. When Mulder looked around, the Baron was gone.

"Hey, mon, you were cool. Not the way I'd have done it, but not bad, for a novice," Chester said as he jumped down. "Now, remember the second part of the message. Your lady needs your help. The gentleman I'll help because you just won the right to get my help. Go and finish off that bokor." With that, Chester vanished, gone to help Simon, Mulder hoped. 

Mulder wasn't sure exactly what was going on with Chester and the Baron, but there wasn't time to analyze the situation. He could feel Scully's cry for help and homed in on her. 

To his dismay, the living room looked like a small tornado had struck. There was no sign of Skinner's guards, though they must have been alarmed when their equipment exploded. Scully was backed up against the Christmas tree with a look of pure horror in her eyes. Mulder couldn't see what she was seeing, but he could see the mastermind behind this attack standing coolly in the middle of the room. He wasn't anyone Mulder had ever seen before, yet he seemed familiar. 

"Ah, you. Through playing with the baka, ghost? Well, I have more where that one came from and all the time in the world to watch you play with my pets," the man Chester had called a bokor commented in a bored, languid tone. 

"This has to end," Mulder said quietly. "Whoever you are, it has to end, now."

The bokor laughed. Mulder saw the darkness coiled within the human shell of the man standing before him and began to understand what they faced. Possession was often claimed by people ignorant of mental illness, but among all the chaff were a few cases that science and medicine couldn't explain away. Bryson had been as much a victim of the bokor as whoever this poor wretch was. Killing the husk would merely free the bokor to find another host, perhaps Simon or one of Skinner's agents. 

As he watched Scully steady herself and raise her gun, he knew that this wasn't the solution. Simon had given him the key. He'd already taken a step into the loas' world. What difference would it make if he walked all the way in? 

"You can't touch me, you pathetic, mewling ghost, pining after a sad excuse of a life that ended in the meaningless death you deserved," the bokor taunted. 

Mulder saw the darkness inside the man reach out and begin to draw a door in the air between them. With no time to consider the consequences, Mulder opened himself to the loa known as Papa Legba.

"OK, Papa Legba. You wanted a door, you got one," Mulder whispered softly. Aloud, he said, "Maybe I can't, but there are others who can."

Before he finished speaking, Mulder felt himself being turned inside out, wrung out, and then stretched as thin as salt-water taffy. One moment he was a singularity, the next he was a drop of water in a tidal wave rushing into and through him. Reeling, he watched in mixed horror and amazement as the spirits of nearly a hundred dead men, women, and children poured out of him to materialize into white smoky shapes. Screams of anger and triumph erupted from the ghosts of the people the bokor had killed. 

Startled out of his preoccupation with the summoning of another baka, the bokor realized his danger too late. The crowd of hungry ghosts had surrounded him. For every one his darkness consumed, another took its place, until all Mulder could see was a human face screaming in mortal terror as it was literally torn apart. The darkness that was the bokor attempted to flee through the partially open window into the baka's world only to be harried away. The bokor darted towards Mulder only to be hurled backwards.

"The gate only opens one way. You were warned, Levigne. The Baron will not take you. I will not open the way for you. You are cast out."

Mulder felt the words form in his mouth, but knew that they didn't come from him. Someone was riding him. For a brief second, he felt eternity stretching out behind and in front of him. 

The bokor screamed as his victims closed in around him. Mulder turned away shuddering. There was a final scream and then silence. 

_Well done. It is over._

Mulder heard the words in his head followed by a rush of wind that passed through him back towards a land that he had glimpsed twice before. 

_It is not my place to open the door for you. Another will come, but there is a choice. You have earned that choice. Choose wisely._ The voice calmed his fear and left him feeling whole and at peace. 

As he straightened up, Mulder saw an old man with water raining from his hands accompanied by a dog who sat quietly at his side. Papa Legba smiled and Mulder was reminded of Chester's infectious grin.

_I have many children. So does the Baron._ With nod of his head, the old man turned and walked away vanishing into a billowing white cloud that faded away as Mulder watched. Feeling oddly bereft, Mulder shook himself and looked for Scully.

To his surprise, Scully hadn't moved. Despite the feeling that several minutes had passed, they apparently hadn't passed for Scully. Mulder watched in stunned disbelief as her finger finished tightening on the trigger. Despite knowing that a bullet couldn't hurt him, he still yelped as he felt it pass through him and lodge in the wall. The roar of the shot was repeated in the kitchen. Scully's eyes were slightly glazed, but otherwise she seemed unharmed. 

Before he could finish materializing, the front door flew open and three of Skinner's guards burst in with weapons drawn. Mulder quickly dematerialized and bolted for the far corner. The agents were agitated enough without presenting them with the ghost of a man they knew to be dead. One of them peeled off to the kitchen while another made a quick search of the bedroom and bath. The remaining agent looked in disbelief at the chaos in the room and swallowed hard. Mulder didn't envy him the report he was going to have to make. 

"What happened, here? Our equipment blew up and then we heard the shots. Are you OK, Agent Scully?" the lead agent asked solicitously. 

"I'm fine," came Scully's patented reply. She stared at the wreckage of her living room and shook her head. "There was an intruder," she started then hesitated and stopped as she realized that there wasn't a body. Her eyes followed the path her bullet must have taken and saw the hole in the wall. With a sudden thud, she sat down in the nearest chair.

"Our cameras showed nothing unusual until they blew up and the lights went out. The police are reporting outages across half the city. Do you have any idea what happened?" The agent, Dyers by name Mulder recalled, looked confused, but immensely relieved that his report did not have to include another agent down.

"I need a medic in here," a voice from the kitchen yelled.

Scully sat upright and started for the kitchen. Mulder got there first and was relieved to see Simon sitting up against a cabinet that looked as if it had sustained a direct hit from a flying body, probably Simon's. He was bleeding from a gash that stretched from shoulder to wrist on his left arm, but otherwise seemed to be in one piece. His heart was racing, but very sound. 

"Simon?" Scully asked as she knelt beside him. "There are more towels in that top drawer," she snapped at Dyer who promptly jumped to and grabbed out enough towels to bandage a platoon.

"Clear in here," came the call from the other agent who appeared in the doorway. "I'll call it in."

"This your intruder, Agent Scully?" Dyer asked, poking a prone body on the floor. A wide pool of blood was spreading across the tiles from under the body. 

"I think so?" Scully replied in a distracted tone. 

"Say yes, Scully," Mulder advised speaking for her ears only. "I'll explain later. Let's not confuse Dyer with things he won't understand or believe," he continued. Scully looked relieved.

"Yes," she affirmed before she went back to wrapping Simon's arm in towels. He opened his eyes and gave her a weak grin.

"Did we win?" he asked groggily. "Good," he replied when Scully nodded. "I'd hate to feel this bad if we didn't win." At that, Simon closed his eyes and started to slide down the cabinet to the floor. 

"He'll be fine, Scully. If he's lucky, he'll sleep through the stitches," Mulder quipped. Scully bit her lip to keep from smiling. Mulder quickly mimed marking a point in the air. Even though Scully couldn't see him, she would know he was keeping score just as he always had when alive.

"A. D. Skinner will be here in thirty minutes, Agent Scully. He told me to tell you to sit down, take it easy, and if the medics wanted to check you over to please not give them any arguments," Dyer said in a carefully neutral tone. 

Scully scowled, then nodded her agreement to the terms. She looked tired, from Mulder's point of view, but otherwise unharmed. They all needed to talk, but obviously that was going to have to wait until tomorrow. Mulder watched the familiar routine of agents investigating a crime scene and protecting two of their own who needed help. Finally, unable to bear the aching sense of loss, he withdrew into his fog bank. He felt as tired as Scully looked. Once everyone had gone, he'd come back and watch over her while she slept, but for now, he wasn't needed.

"Catch up with you later, Scully. We won. I'll be here when you're asleep," Mulder whispered softly in Scully's ear while Dyer was occupied with intercepting a pair of policemen responding to the call of officer down. A wan smile was all he got, but he hugged the warmth of that smile around him as he slept.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Thursday afternoon  
X-Files Office

"Simon, you should be home resting." Scully shot him the glare she had patented when dealing with Mulder's intransigence over doctor's orders. Two partners did not constitute a reliable statistical base, but she was beginning to wonder if this was pushing the odds.

"The doctor said to rest. A. D. Skinner was the one who said to go home and rest," Simon pointed out reasonably. "I am resting," he assured her as he leaned back in his chair, carefully propping up his bandaged arm. 

A laugh from the air near the printer table caused her to roll her eyes then spread her hands in a gesture of surrender. Mulder materialized slowly until he was opaque enough to reassure Scully that she wasn't talking to thin air. Simon shivered a bit and Mulder inched back until he could lean against the wall. 

Mulder thought he could hear her mutter something about bad influences and stifled another laugh. Scully sounded miffed, but he could tell she was mostly worried, rather than upset with either of them. She had slept late and had steadfastly refused to discuss the previous evening's events. Mulder wasn't sure whether she was still rearranging the facts to fit into a theory compatible with science or whether she was trying to ignore the more outrageous parts of the attack. Either would be her natural approach to the paranormal. As far as he knew, he was the only paranormal phenomena she couldn't explain away or ignore. To his dismay, that chink in her logic didn't make her any more willing to accept other supernatural events. She was still the resolute skeptic, although he noticed that she had to work a bit harder to make the facts conform to science than before his reappearance as a ghost.

"Besides, I'll rest better when I know what the hell happened last night," Simon argued. 

"He has a point, Scully. Eventually, Skinner's going to want a report and it might be better if you got your stories straight beforehand. Unless you were planning on explaining how two men broke into your apartment, past the security team, and only one body remained," Mulder observed with just a hint of sardonic amusement that got him another glare from Scully.

"It was a standard break-in and assault, Mulder. Nothing more. The fact that the perpetrator evaded the security set-up is a matter for Skinner to take up with the agents responsible," Scully announced firmly. Mulder noticed that she used the singular rather than the plural to refer to the attackers.

"Scully, the man Simon killed was a hired thug. You might not like to believe that the man responsible for the deaths of Thomas and Gowers was a bokor, but no ordinary thug has the power to summon a baka or stroll past security cameras without a trace showing up." 

"So you say, Mulder," Scully snapped, then gave him an apologetic look. "Sorry. I keep trying to convince myself that the things that man made me see have a scientific explanation. Mulder, whoever I was facing seemed to know what my darkest nightmares were. That isn't possible," she added in a small voice.

"Scully, that man was a bokor, a Vodoun sorcerer. Vodoun, as you remember, specializes in illusions. Maybe he used some sort of airborne hallucinogens to disorient you," Mulder offered as a crumb of hope to her determination to find a scientific explanation. For all he knew, drugs weren't out of the question. If drugs made it easier for her to accept the violation of her psyche, he saw no reason not to let her take that comfort. 

"You don't believe that?" Scully accused. 

Mulder shrugged. "Drugs or psychic manipulation -- does it really matter? The man is dead. If Skinner wants to pin the entire blame on the thug it won't matter much to him, either. Whatever happened to bokor did not leave anything behind." Mulder looked pensively across the room. He doubted if Scully was ready to accept the truth. If he hadn't been there and seen what happened, he might be skeptical, too. In a way, the man the bokor possessed was just as much as victim of the bokor as Bryson. Maybe they weren't nice men, but they didn't deserve having their souls banished into limbo because a bokor wanted a body. 

"So, what really happened?" Simon asked. "Not the stuff we'll put in our report and try to remember, but the things we don't want to remember?"

Scully stiffened, but didn't try to override him. Mulder wondered if deep down inside she was beginning to understand that skepticism and belief didn't have to be mutually exclusive. She could keep looking for the scientific explanation and accept that there were questions science didn't have answers to. She'd once told him that science sometimes didn't know how to ask the questions, yet. Maybe she'd be the one to come up with those questions.

"We faced off with something Chester called a bokor, which roughly translates as evil sorcerer, I think. Apparently, the bokor's been jumping from body to body for a very long time. Bryson's journal is really his journal started back when he was still in his original body," Mulder explained. It was a fantastic story and he wasn't surprised when Scully interrupted.

"Mulder that's impossible." Scully adopted her favorite exasperated, skeptical expression that she pulled out whenever she felt he had crossed the boundary between improbable to downright impossible. 

"Is it any less possible than the demonic possession the Catholic Church acknowledges?" Mulder asked. It never ceased to amaze and bemused him that Scully could accept the miracles her church sanctioned as a matter of faith, yet reject paranormal events that were similar simply because they weren't included in her articles of faith.

"Are you claiming that Bryson was possessed by a demon?" Scully's tone slid into the incredulous.

"Demon, sorcerer, wandering spirit; who's to say where the line can be drawn?" Mulder paused for a moment then tried another tack. "Evil is evil no matter what you call it. Perhaps, in a very few cases, evil can survive the death of the body and infect others." 

"Like a virus," Simon suggested. The idea seemed to intrigue him. Bryson's journal was lying on his desk and he kept darting wary glances at it as if curious, but also afraid of what he might find.

Scully started to scoff then seemed to pause to consider the theory. It was a start, Mulder figured. His return as a ghost had fractured her certainty that science held the answers to all the questions he used to ask. A contagion of evil was no less credible than the reappearance of her dead partner as a ghost.

"You're reaching, both of you. If you're suggesting that Bryson should be excused from his crimes because the devil made him kill. . . ." Scully's skepticism roared back and she looked like she was prepared to argue on this point.

"Well, it's certainly a theory the Catholic Church has endorsed in the past," Mulder countered, lobbing the ball back into her court. Not a welcome return if he was reading the discomforted look on her face correctly. Relenting, he softened the argument. "I doubt if a defense attorney would get very far with that claim these days. Perhaps for evil to move in there has to be an existing disposition towards evil. Bryson was not one of the good guys before he started on his killing spree."

"Read the journal, Scully, and then make up your mind. I think you may end up with more questions than answers," Mulder suggested. Scully shook her head, but she glanced over at the journal before jerking her gaze away. Mulder didn't push the matter. Scully had to chart her own path to belief. The more anyone pushed her, the more stubbornly she held on to her skepticism.

"Why don't we take this one at a time?" Mulder suggested and nodded to Simon to start off. Might as well start with the easiest account for Scully to accept.

"Not much to tell. I came into the kitchen and found the intruder standing just inside the back door. Skinner tells me that the man's name was Kinroy and he had a rap sheet a mile long mostly for assault with deadly weapons. As far as I can recall, the door was closed and the window wasn't broken. Before I could fire, he threw something at me that felt like a cannonball. I crashed into the cabinets and the next thing I knew he was on me with a very big knife; I think they call them Bowie knives. After he tried to carve my arm off, I finally managed to fire and he flew backwards. The next thing I know, Agent Fuller was kneeling beside me wrapping a towel around my arm. Couldn't have been more than three or four minutes from start to finish," Simon said with a grimace. "Longest four minutes of my life up to now, though," he added under his breath.

Mulder could have sworn his fight lasted a lot longer than four minutes, but he said nothing. It would be interesting to hear Scully's account to see if she shared that same sense of compressed time. That could explain why Skinner's guards had seemed to take so long to react. Mulder tried not to think about the power it must have taken for the bokor to play with time that way. Even if he'd known how powerful the bokor had become, he'd still have had to face off with him, but he'd probably have had the sense to be a lot more terrified than he was.

Scully seemed to be waiting to him to continue the story, but when Mulder showed no signs of offering his side, she sighed. "Frankly, I'm not sure what happened. I remember thinking that someone was in the room," she started, then hesitated, obviously unsure of how to continue. "I saw things, nightmares, really. It's all very confused. I remember raising my gun to fire at the intruder. Mulder, you appeared a moment later as I fired. I could have sworn there was someone there, but obviously I was mistaken. Then Agent Dyer rushed in," Scully said firmly. Whatever her nightmare illusions had been, she was obviously not going to share. Mulder couldn't really blame her. He had more than a few personal nightmares he wouldn't want anyone else to know either. 

"How do you explain the mess in your living room?" Mulder asked gently. For a moment, Mulder thought she wasn't going to answer. She could dismiss what she'd seen as she had so many times before on their cases, but the tangible evidence of over-turned furniture and broken vases would be harder to explain away. 

"I can't," she finally admitted after struggling with anger that melted into a tired resignation. 

She looked tired and Mulder wondered whether pushing her to accept the fact that a sorcerer trashed her home while trying to drive her mad with her darkest nightmares would serve any purpose. On a deeper level, he suspected she believed, but the fear of believing was greater than her need to resolve all the loose ends. Maybe that had been her problem all along and he'd never understood. For him, believing had always been a grail, something to be sought out and embraced. Perhaps, for Scully, believing in the unknown represented chaos. 

"Mulder?" Scully prodded. 

Startled out of his thoughts, Mulder nodded. Whatever doubts she had were now firmly buried and Mulder didn't feel like exhuming them right now.

"I wish I'd shared your sense that the fight only lasted a minute or two," he quipped with a wry smile. "It felt like a football quarter with no time outs. Eventually, I managed to lead the baka out of your apartment and out into the park. Unfortunately, I think it was responsible for the damage done to the electronic surveillance equipment, not to mention the power outage," Mulder said sheepishly. Scully gave him a fond smile. She might not believe in bakas, but she did believe in his ability to create collateral damage.

"Just suspend your disbelief for this, Scully. It may sound like a fairy tale, but I was there and it happened," Mulder urged. Scully gave him a wait and see look. Simon leaned forward, all ears.

"The baka didn't like moonlight. I have a feeling that if we waited a couple more days to spring this trap, that we might not be here trying to decide what happened. Once we were outside, there was just enough moonlight to show that thing down. Then, I took Chester's advice and called for re-enforcements. I think the bokor had seriously irritated some of the more important loa. Once the baka was sent back to wherever bakas come from, I came back to see if I could help." Mulder paused and tried to come up with a way to explain what happened without straining Scully's tolerance for the paranormal. In the end, he decided to simply gloss over the bokor's destruction. The how didn't matter as much as the fact that it had happened.

"The bokor was destroyed by his victims. Maybe his illusions doubled back and killed him, or maybe I saw the restless ghosts of his victims take revenge. Either way, the man is dead and the balance is restored, according to Chester." Mulder watched Scully worry over the improbabilities of his story, then shrug a weary acceptance.

"So, we have the paranormal explanation and we have the nice, tidy mundane explanation that will allow A. D. Skinner to sleep at night. Personally, right now, I think I'll take the second option. I don't want to have to write up a report that tries to explain how a suspect threw me across a room without laying a hand on me," Simon said. His eyes were haunted.

Mulder wondered if he had sensed more than he was letting on. Simon was almost spooky, he thought with a rueful chuckle. Maybe there was something in the air in this office that touched people who were willing to believe. 

"Then we'll give Skinner the facts. Everything else is speculation," Scully asserted with a relieved air. Simon nodded. Mulder sighed, but also nodded his agreement. A nice factual report would also gloss over his involvement. If Scully could reconcile filing a partial report by clinging to the idea that it was just the facts, then both she and Skinner would be happier.

Seeing Simon idly fingering the journal and Scully resolutely pulling up her notes on the computer, Mulder decided it was time to go elsewhere. One of the few benefits of being dead was not having to write reports. Mulder intended to take full advantage of that.

"Catch you later, Scully," he whispered as he walked past her. She shivered as his hand touched her shoulder, but she smiled and mouthed, "Slacker." Mulder's laugh lingered in the air half a heartbeat after he disappeared.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Time: Indeterminate  
Place: Somewhere else

Normally, as Mulder dozed in the grayish fog he called home, he was aware of his link with Scully, but little else. For all he knew, the fog could be full of wandering spirits, but so far he'd encountered no one. It was a place to relax the effort to hold the shape and form he had in life and simply hover effortlessly in what he thought of as a fog bank. Therefore, he was startled to sense the presence of another mind approaching. He had no idea how long he'd been asleep, although a quick check of the link told him that Scully was not yet asleep. Pulling himself together, literally, he stood up.

To his surprise and growing dismay, the visitor was the spirit he called Gordon. Gordon had been the one who had informed him that his death was unexpected and gently explained that he had something to do before he would be allowed to pass into the afterlife. He had witnessed Gordon escorting other souls through the shining door, always with a sense of grief at the brief glimpses he caught of a bright world beyond. Gordon's appearance was highly unusual. As much as Mulder longed to see what lay beyond the door, he also resisted losing his contact with Scully. With a sense of foreboding, he waited for Gordon to speak.

"It's time," Gordon said simply, extending a hand. Beyond him, Mulder could see a door forming and light pouring through as if through a prism. Yearning and resistance balanced so completely that he felt like a tuning fork vibrating. 

"So soon?" Mulder finally managed to say. 

Gordon smiled and changed his proffered hand to a gesture to sit down. It didn't surprise Mulder to find that they were suddenly in a small garden on a hill overlooking the sea. Mulder wondered if Gordon had plucked this place out of his memory. This was his grandmother's garden in her house on the Maine coast. He used to sit for hours watching storms roll in from the sea when he was a boy, before Samantha was taken and his boyhood ended.

"This is but a shadow of what was. I thought you might be more comfortable here. Life, even the life after death, can sometimes become complicated. Before, you desired to pass through the door, but it was closed. Now the door is open and you no longer wish to pass through," Gordon said with a smile. His manner was relaxed and genial as if he had all the time in the world to sit here and chat with a reluctant soul. Mulder had no doubt that Gordon could kick him through the door if he chose, but apparently he was willing to listen to Mulder's reservations. 

Encouraged by the prospect that he might have a say in the matter, he began to relax. Impulsively, Mulder walked over to the small wall surrounding the garden and sat on it, letting his legs dangle over the side with nothing beneath his feet, but a sheer drop down to the rocky coast. He had always enjoyed this precarious perch. Once, to his great surprise, his grandmother had joined him to watch a storm blowing in from the sea. His parents had always chased him off, telling him that it was too dangerous. This had been the last good memory he had of this place. His grandmother had died the following year and the year after that Samantha had been taken. 

"Is Samantha there?" Mulder asked quietly. 

"Like you, she chooses to exist in another realm, but if you are asking if her physical body is dead, then yes. She's at peace. One day you may journey to her realm or she to yours. She remembers you with love, Fox," Gordon added in a gentle voice.

The silence stretched out between them as Mulder allowed himself to grieve for the sister he hadn't been able to protect and whose disappearance had shaped his life. The Blessing Way vision then had been only a dream, the heartfelt wish of a man who wanted to believe he could still ride to the rescue and be Samantha's knight errant. Mulder smiled at the memory and let acceptance of what was relax one of the cords binding him to the earth. The other cords were still stout and strong, though.

"Was this how I was supposed to die?" Mulder asked curiously. As long as Gordon was in the mood to answer questions, he intended to ask them.

"In the original time line you died to save Dana, Simon and three other agents from the angry soul you confronted tonight. You were to be the only one who believed enough to confound the magic. It destroyed you, but in doing so it also destroyed him. You have done well and it is time to come home . . . if you wish?" Gordon asked after a brief pause.

Mulder looked up, startled and felt a tiny spark of hope beginning to catch fire. It sounded as if he might have a choice in the matter. 

"You have won the right to a choice, or rather a choice has been petitioned for you." Gordon laughed at Mulder's dumbfounded expression. "The afterlife is rich and varied, Fox. We have many realms and many mansions and more cooperation among the various faiths than the living can imagine."

"I can stay?" Mulder asked, focusing on the important part of Gordon's comment. The rest he stored away for future reference, to mull over when he was resting.

"You have two choices. You can come with me and enter into the afterlife as originally planned. You have seen enough to know what this offers. However, you have attracted the interest of a group of spirits who are more earthbound than I. They, or several among them, have offered to welcome you into their midst with the understanding that upon Dana's death, you will be offered the choice again." At Mulder's look of surprise, he explained, "All of them have deferred the choice of passing through my door for many reasons." Gordon smiled fondly as his eyes stared out over the sea. 

"You mean the Vodoun loa?" Mulder asked cautiously as his mind raced around trying to sort through all his jumbled emotions. The theology alone was enough to confuse him.

"The Baron in particular. Apparently his newest recruit has taken a strong liking to you and Dana and thinks it quite romantic to allow you to be on call to protect her. You would be, for all intents and purposes, a loa subject to the laws of the Vodoun." Gordon leaned back against a stone prop that Mulder could have sworn wasn't there a moment before.

Swinging his legs back to the patio, Mulder got up and began to pace. He'd always thought better on his feet and the habits of a lifetime couldn't be laid aside just because of the pesky fact that he was dead. Gordon sat quietly, staring off into the distance. Finally, Mulder's pacing slowed and he came to stand beside Gordon to stare out over the sea. A storm was forming off in the distance. As the wind picked up, he realized that he could see the currents swirling around in the air. Memories of life, of Scully, and of the sights and smells of earth wove strong chains around him binding him to the choice he realized he'd made when he had promised Scully he would always be there to look after her. It was a simple choice, in the end, and might bring regrets, but it was the right one.

"I thought you'd make that choice, Fox," Gordon said softly without taking his eyes off the sea. "You won't be able to continue as you have been doing for the past several months. The loa are bound by rules and as a loa, even one in training, so you will be, too. For someone who has always resented rules that may be hard. Think carefully," Gordon warned.

Mulder stopped and thought about it. He'd gotten used to dropping in on Scully whenever he pleased. From what he knew of Vodoun that free-and-easy relationship would have to end. On the one hand, Scully would be in control of the situation and that would reassure her. On the other, he would miss being able to just show up and chat. Both of them would need to make some adjustments, but taking the long view, he might be able to be of more use as a loa than as a ghost without a clue as to what he was doing. On the other hand, he could see some major problems looming.

"I'm beginning to get the hang of being a ghost. I'm not sure I'm into the spirit possession ecstasy thing," Mulder admitted. He wasn't familiar with all aspects of Vodoun ritual, but the idea of having to possess someone in order to talk to Scully was distasteful. Scully would probably recoil in horror at the idea and refuse to have anything to do with him. Mulder felt his spirits sink as he realized that there might be insurmountable difficulties with the whole loa idea.

"Vodoun is far more flexible than you know. No loa can be coerced to service against their will. Besides, I believe you would properly be considered as a guardian spirit rather than one of the traditional loa," Gordon pointed out. "It's a promotion from being a ghost, but still very low down in the hierarchy," he added with a chuckle.

One day soon, Mulder intended to spend an entire day pondering the startling notion that angels had a sense of humor. He wondered how that fact had been overlooked in the religious texts. 

"So, where do I go to sign up?" Mulder quipped. It was tempting to be serious about such a heavy-weight decision, but flippancy came more naturally to him than ponderous seriousness.

"Go to the bench where you used to go to think things out. Your loa guide will find you," Gordon said. After a moment, he stood up and extended a hand. "Good luck, Fox. I wondered whether you might choose a different path. You and your sister are not that different. May you find happiness in your choice as she has in hers. Until we meet again," he added as he clasped Mulder's hand in farewell.

Mulder shot him a quizzical look hoping that Gordon might give him a hint as to how long that wait might be. To his disappointment, Gordon shook his head.

"I'm not privy to Dana's passing date, Fox. I'm merely the gatekeeper, not the one who severs the souls," he said softly as he turned and walked away. 

Mulder watched him walk into a cloud and vanish with a slight qualm. Gordon had been an anchor in his confusing, upside-down world. He tried to tell himself that it was natural to be anxious about a new job as he gathered up his courage and thought about the bench beside the Potomac. Thought became action and he found himself standing beside the bench in the early dawn as a cold rain pelted the area. The rain tickled a bit as it passed through him.

"Hey, man, welcome to the family!" Chester's cheerful voice boomed out as he appeared out of the rain. His grin was infectious and Mulder found himself smiling in return. "I knew you couldn't pass up the chance. Now I got to explain some things to you, then take you around and introduce you. Some of the family are a bit miffed that you got in, but when Papa and the Baron say jump, they jump and don't ask questions. You'll be one of Papa's kin, but I pulled rank and snagged the job of teaching you the ropes." 

Forgetting for the moment that he was insubstantial, Mulder sat down on the bench and floundered as he passed through the bench and halfway into the ground before catching himself. Chester laughed and offered him a hand up. Wondering just what he'd let himself in for, Mulder took the hand and felt himself literally hauled upright. Chester was stronger than he looked, although Mulder had always suspected that there was more to Chester than met the eye.

"Now, first thing you have to do is choose your offering," Chester said as Mulder cautiously materialized enough to perch on the bench. Chester sat down next to him swinging his feet and looking as normal as any ten-year-old boy.

"Offering?" Mulder asked as he tried to remember everything he'd read about Vodoun. There was a vague memory about ritual offerings of food and sacrificial animals. 

"Tastes vary, mon. Hey, what do you want to be called, Fox or Mulder? We're going to be cousins after all," Chester pointed out.

"Mulder. I get to choose?" Mulder asked hopefully. His mind boggled at the image of Scully sacrificing a chicken to summon him. Actually, boggle was an understatement. His mind took one look at the idea and ran screaming for cover.

"Of course." Chester looked surprised at the question. "Hey, do you think I really need the Big Macs and fries? They taste good and I love them, but they're payment for my help. Pick something you really like and that's what Miss Scully or anyone else has to put out to call you."

"Anything?" Mulder asked as he considered his various tastes in food.

"Anything. Just be sure it's something you won't get tired of. Knew a loa once who loved fried chicken when he was alive and picked that as his offering. He got so popular that he can't even stand to smell the stuff anymore," Chester said with a laugh. Mulder wasn't sure whether he was serious or not, but the caution made a lot of sense. 

"Sunflower seeds," Mulder said after giving the matter some thought. He liked them and they were easy to carry around, plus they were inconspicuous enough to conceal in a pocket or purse. It was going to be hard enough to explain to Scully that she had to set out seeds for him without him choosing something that might be noticed by other agents.

Chester cocked his head to one side as if thinking about the choice, then grinned. "Smart. Easier to get than Big Macs. You're going to do all right." Chester beamed with approval and Mulder sensed that one hurdle had just been successfully crossed.

"Ordinarily, we don't give free visits, but you made a promise and Papa likes people who keep their promises. Go tell Miss Scully that you'll be around and explain about the seeds. She doesn't believe in us so convincing her might take some doing. I've got leave from the Baron to remind her if she tries to call you without them. Can't do that more than one or two times, but I can pass word to your friends with the computers and maybe they can convince her." Chester's mischievous grin made Mulder wonder just how he intended on delivering that message to the Gunmen. He was tempted to ask, but decided that what he didn't know he wouldn't have to apologize for. _Deus Ex Machina_ suddenly took on a whole new meaning. 

"Thanks," Mulder said. Chester waved off the thanks as he disappeared. Mulder hoped the Gunmen had good nerves.

Summoning all his courage, Mulder focused on Scully and found himself in her apartment. To his surprise, it was already late afternoon on Friday. Obviously Scully hadn't needed to talk to him since their meeting with Simon Thursday afternoon. The living room had been straightened up and as far as Mulder could tell there was nothing to remind her that her personal safe space had been ruthlessly invaded two days ago. 

A steaming pot of tea and a salad sat on the table by the large comfy chair she used when she wanted to curl up with a good book or to watch a movie on TV. Soft sounds from the kitchen told him that Scully was in there. Tempting as it was to follow her in, Mulder decided that she might appreciate being in relative control of this conversation. Given the recent home invasion, she didn't need to feel cornered. Materializing just enough to be an opaque form, Mulder drifted over to the couch. When he heard Scully begin to leave the kitchen he gave her a warning whistle. He was sure he wasn't meant to hear the soft 'damn' she muttered and tried not to take it personally. Scully had probably been looking forward to a nice, quiet, uncomplicated evening. 

"Hello, Mulder," she said as she came into the living room bearing a mug and a jar of honey. Her smile might have been a bit on the sad side, but she didn't seem upset; just very tired.

"Hey," he replied then fell silent as he tried to marshal the words to tell her that she had just gotten a new guardian angel, well, spirit rather. Mulder doubted if he qualified for angel status even under rules bent into circles.

Scully let the silence grow between them as she ate her salad. Mulder felt oddly comforted by her acceptance of his presence. They had always said more in silence than in words. They needed to talk, but the silence after so many stresses and strains felt good.

Eventually, after she had finished the salad and settled back with a second cup of tea, Scully gave a small sigh and looked directly at him. "Is this goodbye?" she asked softly.

Surprised, Mulder shook his head. There were times when he thought that Scully had more claim on the nickname Spooky than he had. She had this uncanny way of knowing what he wasn't trying to say. 

"No, although it was a close thing," he admitted. Scully sat up with a start.

"I was supposed to have died the other night, if I had been alive at the time that is. My belief in Vodoun was supposed to have saved you and several other agents, including Simon. Technically, I could leave, but I was offered this really neat job," Mulder said with a sly grin. Scully gave him a very wary look.

"Apparently, Chester and the loa, at least some of them, decided to adopt me. I get to stick around and be your guardian spirit. I think your guardian angel has applied for a long vacation, so consider me a very focused temp replacement," Mulder said brightly hoping to elicit an answering smile from Scully. She snorted, but Mulder could see her lips twitching ever so slightly. He hid a grin. This was going well.

"Let me get this straight. You're my guardian angel? I don't see any wings and I haven't rung any bells, lately," Scully replied with a straight face.

Grinning at her, Mulder stood up and made a slow turn so she could see that he didn't come equipped with wings. "Nope, no wings. I'm not an angel. More like a spirit in training. I'll be on call any time you need me. Only drawback is that I can't just drop in to say hi. You need to call me. Put out a dish of sunflower seeds, think of me, and I'll be here. No chicken feathers or odd chants, just sunflower seeds," Mulder added cheerfully.

Scully gave him a stern glare, but he could see she was thinking about it. Finally, she relaxed and shook her head. "I thought you had to leave when your time was up? If you've done something rash, Mulder," she began in a worried tone.

"No. This was an option approved of by Gordon himself and while I learned that angels can laugh, I don't think they can lie. I earned a choice and I took it. I won't be underfoot. You can live your life without having me show up at inopportune moments, but if you need me I'll be there. Eventually, I'll pass on. I have Gordon's promise on that." Mulder paused. Scully was looking dubious, but she was listening to what he was saying. 

_She must approve._

Mulder had no idea where that thought came from, but suspected that it was one of the new rules Gordon had warned him about. Years of experience with Scully told him to give her time, but if Chester was right, he wasn't going to get another chance to talk with her unless she played by those rules.

"Say, yes, Scully. Think about it for a few days. Put out some seeds and we can talk some more. If you don't like the idea, then you never have to put out the seeds and I won't pester you." Mulder winced as he made that promise, but he was beginning to feel the constraints of Vodoun laws. Why did there always have to be a downside to every major decision he made?

"Of all the insane, impulsive . . . .," Scully began then chuckled. She looked radiant at that moment as if she was seeing an impossibility become possible. " You're impossible, Mulder, but over the last twenty-four hours, when I deliberately refused to call you or expect you, I realized how much I'd miss you if you had moved on."

One of the downsides of being a ghost, or loa, was that he didn't have a breath to hold, but he felt himself go perfectly still waiting for her answer. 

"Yes. It's a crazy idea, but I've grown accustomed to having you wander through my life. We're going to have to work out some ground rules, though," she cautioned.

"The ground rules are already laid out, Scully. You have to call me. I can't just show up uninvited. Running out of sunflower seeds would be a bad idea, however," Mulder added with a smile that won an answering smile from Scully.

"I'll put them on my weekly grocery list," she promised, then yawned and started to apologize.

"Get some sleep, Scully. I'll have to find out if my duties include tucking you in, but until then I'll just be your friendly, invisible, alarm system," Mulder quipped. Scully mimed throwing a pillow at him and laughed when he put up his hands in a protective gesture. 

Mulder waited in the living room as she went about her nightly routine. When she was safely in bed, he slipped in to whisper a goodnight, then faded into the darkness. The bright world beyond Gordon's door still called to him, but this was his world as long as Scully had need of him. Satisfied, he returned to the bench by the Potomac and waited for Chester. He had a lot to learn, but for the first time since he died, he was a ghost with a purpose.

Out of the mist and shadows, Chester bounced into sight grinning excitedly. "Hey, Mulder, we're throwing you a welcome to the family party." 

He started to run off, then stopped and looked back at Mulder who was still sitting on the bench looking slightly shell-shocked. " Come on. Let's go!"

_What in hell did I just get myself into?_ Mulder wondered as he got up to follow Chester.

The End


End file.
